


Butch/Femme Dynamics

by artlessICTOAN



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Borderline Exhibitionism?, Buff Femme Sakura, Buff Femmes need i say more, Butch/Butch, Butch/Femme, Comedy of Errors, Cosplay, Domestic Fluff, Drabble Collection, Egregious Cake, Established Relationship, F/F, Flirty Sparring, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Gym AU, Halloween Costumes, Love Confessions, Married Couple, Meet-Cute, Mild Sexual Content, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Party, Reunions, Rival Shops AU, Sparring, Teacher/Teacher relationship, ain't no complaints here tho, also there are a lot of Feelings, and ino cannot cope with how hot she is now, bc i like it, damn hinakarin's more popular than i realised, for a certain definition of 'help', honestly i was not expecting the Emotions, sakura leaves konoha as a kid to train, the sand fam is Definitely Helping, workouts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2020-10-26 22:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20749868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artlessICTOAN/pseuds/artlessICTOAN
Summary: A collection of requested femslash drabbles, mostly just an excuse to play around with making characters more butch/femme/futch than they are in canon.(You can request things in the comments!!)





	1. Femme Hina/Futch Karin - A Secret Place

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna request something, just put it in the comments (e.g. butch tenten/sporty femme sakura, modern au gym meet-cute)
> 
> dw bout being faithful to canon, i live for femme tema and butch ino, so just say whatever you wanna see (and doesn’t have to be exclusively f/b, f/f and b/b are all good shit), only rules are obviously no gross stuff or anything, and i’m not really feeling dark so keep things more to the fluffy/sappy/funny/spicy side, maaaybe hurt/comfort if the prompt catches me.
> 
> This request was for femme hina and futch karin, with the latter taking the former somewhere special. Took me a lil while to get back into the swing of things but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out so hope you guys enjoy too!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanna request something, just put it in the comments (e.g. butch tenten/sporty femme sakura, modern au gym meet-cute)
> 
> dw bout being faithful to canon, i live for femme tema and butch ino, so just say whatever you wanna see (and doesn’t have to be exclusively f/b, f/f and b/b are all good shit), only rules are obviously no gross stuff or anything, and i’m not really feeling dark so keep things more to the fluffy/sappy/funny/spicy side, maaaybe hurt/comfort if the prompt catches me.
> 
> This request was for femme hina and futch karin, with the latter taking the former somewhere special. Took me a lil while to get back into the swing of things but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out so hope you guys enjoy too!

\---

Konoha summers were way too hot.

She’d been living here for almost three years and she _still_ wasn’t used to the sticky heat, which was why she was flapping the hem of her sleeveless shirt in a vain attempt to cool off. In fact, she’d grown progressively more dishevelled since leaving the house this morning, first abandoning her light jacket – which was now wrapped around her waist – then pulling her carefully styled locks up into a messy, makeshift bun – because why had she _ever_ thought it was a good idea to have so much hair? – then finally rolling up the ends of her – already pretty short – shorts to a point that was probably indecent, but she couldn’t bring herself to care anymore.

Karin had to wonder if she should’ve dressed up a bit more, or at least fought the urge to shed as much clothing as possible; it was rare for her to have time alone with her secret crush and, no matter how unlikely her fantasies were, it probably wouldn’t hurt to try a little harder to impress her.

On the other hand, it was hot as balls and she didn’t have that big a wardrobe to choose from in the first place, so slightly frayed shorts, well-worn sandals and an acceptably smart shirt it was.

The second she saw Hinata finally rounding the corner, however, she knew she could bear any kind of discomfort, just to stand in her radiance. Her pretty, pure white dress effortlessly treaded the line between casual and classy, ribbons fluttering behind her as she trotted over to where Karin was waiting, one hand holding her wide sunhat in place, the other waving with the kind of excitement that made her heart race and cheeks burn.

“Wow…” Karin was _definitely_ staring as the girl came to a stop before her, just a little out of breath. “You look amazing Hinata, though I feel a bit underdressed now,” she said, tugging awkwardly at the hem of her very old, very not-dressy shorts.

Hinata giggled softly and ran studying eyes up and down her body. “You’d look beautiful no matter what you wear, don’t worry so much.”

How she wished she could just bottle that smile and drink it deep whenever she needed a pick-me-up. Which was often, when Hinata wasn’t around.

“So, where are we going today?”

She tried to fight back the blush, but her cheeks pointedly ignored her mental demands, so she just put on her cockiest smirk and winked like she wasn’t two seconds away from combusting. “Just a cool place I found; you’ll see.”

With a soft snicker that made her insides quiver, Hinata held up a hand. “Well then, lead the way.”

Karin’s pulse shot through the roof but she played along as she gently took the offered hand in hers and quickly began pulling her through the streets, though not _too_ quickly – as eager as she was to reach their destination, she fully intended to take advantage of the shared skin for as long as possible.

They wound through the familiar roads, cutting though a picturesque park, before heading into the older, mostly derelict part of Konoha, where there were more empty houses than full ones and only a few struggling shops remained. Hinata looked around, clearly curious as to what Karin was planning, but she didn’t appear nervous about being so out-of-place amongst the grotty, abandoned buildings and rougher folk of the city.

Soon enough, they were standing in a narrow alleyway, high walls blocking out any light and the debris of crumbling brick walls littering the floor.

There was no one around, which wasn’t a surprise, it’d been the same every other time she’d come here. She was already preparing to climb the tall wall, when she glanced back at her companion, in her light dress and her beautiful, lacy flats. That could be a problem.

Karin untied the jacket around her waist and wrapped it around Hinata’s before she could say a word. It probably wouldn’t do much, but a little protection was better than nothing, right?

She nodded at her handiwork, saying, “This is gonna sound weird, but you might want to take your shoes off,” before turning around to launch herself up the wall, until she was sitting comfortable atop it.

“What for?” Hinata asked, though she was already bending down to follow the instruction.

“It’s pretty dirty back here and it’d be a shame to ruin them, c’mon, I’ll lift you up.” Together, they made their way up and over, landing heavily on the other side, in what had presumably once been a garden. Now though, the ground was more dead leaf than soil, with old, tough weeds determinedly fighting each other for territory, but it was a pretty decent size and there was even a shed buried under some holey dust sheets.

Clearly, the place hadn’t seen a human in years, if not decades.

Hinata was already looking around, carefully gliding her feet through the deep leaf carpet, apparently unbothered by the feeling. Karin was pretty impressed; she could barely hold back her grimace as grime slipped under her sandals. “So, what is this place?”

She coughed, trying her best to sound casual. “Well, you mentioned once that you really wanted a little garden project to work on, I know it’s a little run-down-” she pointedly ignored the ominous creaking of the dilapidated shed “-but I just thought that if it was cleaned up, it could be a really nice place to sneak away to when home’s stressing you out…”

Shit, was that a little presumptuous of her? Maybe this was a bad idea, though she couldn’t exactly take it back now-

“Oh, Karin, I love it!” Hinata literally squealed, pointing towards the wall they’d jumped over to get here. “Some cosmos flowers would look beautiful over there, larkspur all along that back wall, a little path running through here, how difficult do you think it would be to build a small pond?”

Her, ‘Dunno,’ was either ignored or simply not heard, but she didn’t really mind. It was much more gratifying to watch Hinata flitting around the abandoned yard, muttering her plans and already digging fine, delicate hands into the earth to test the soil, utterly absorbed and uncaring of the dirt staining her white dress.

This was what she loved about the girl; her ability to see beauty in the _potential_ of things, rather than reject them purely on their current sorry state.

Karin was sure that was the only reason Hinata still hung out with her and it gave her hope that there was a brighter future for her, if someone could just help her rip up the weeds and nurture the seeds of a better person buried within her.

“What flowers would _you_ like to plant here, Karin?”

She blinked a few times to focus on the huge, pale eyes staring back at her, before letting out a dignified, “You what?”

Hinata’s lips twisted in a way that suggested she was withholding laughter, which maybe she would’ve been taken offense to if she didn’t look so damn cute while doing it. “You like making perfume, right? Are there any good plants for that? I’m sure we can find room for them somewhere, if you have any ideas please tell me.”

“I… can probably think of something,” she eventually said, still a little floored at the tacit invitation to join this project. Of course she’d always intended to help out – that shed was gonna be a two-person job at minimum – but when she had stumbled across this place, she’d always imagined it as _Hinata’s_ garden.

But Hinata wanted it to be _theirs_ and fuck she just couldn’t anymore-

There was a tiny squeak as she leaned forwards as pressed her lips against the other girl and she honestly couldn’t tell if it had belonged to her, or Hinata, but when soft, dirt-covered hands slid across her flaming cheeks she immediately stopped thinking.

When they pulled apart, it could’ve been seconds or hours, but Hinata was grinning up at her and her heart was racing and suddenly she could see flowers blooming in every corner of the dank, dismal space.

“So… where do we start?”

\---


	2. Butch Yodo/Femme Chouchou - A Confession of Errors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woof this one got so long.. no regrets tho. the request was for butch yodo and femme chou, with yodo's attempts to confess constantly being foiled and goddam did i get way into this one. hope yall enjoy!

“Maaan, haven’t been here in so long, this place looks exactly the same.”

Yodo rolled her eyes – the thing that never changed was her friend’s reaction every time she came over to her house – but helped Chouchou bring in the many bags of luggage she’d brought with her. The woman had claimed she’d packed light for this trip, but Yodo couldn’t imagine how she’d ever manage to go through so many outfits in just a week.

Without bothering to wait for Yodo to shed her extra layers, she bounded up the stairs, already on a bee-line to Yodo’s room.

“Oi, wait up!” She struggled with fabric, finally just throwing it on the floor for someone else to pick up later. Or for her dad to nag her into doing it herself. Whichever came first.

By the time she caught up to Chouchou, she was almost to her room, but had stopped at the open door to the Kazekage’s study. With the kind of brazen disrespect that he somehow managed to inspire in a lot of kids and teenagers, she waved at him and practically screamed, “Hey Uncle Gaara, thanks for having me!”

He nodded and gave a brief smile – the only kind he was really capable of, but no one thought less of him for it. “Of course, it’s always a pleasure to see you.”

They passed by his office and got almost three feet before he poked his head around the door and called after them, “Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“No thanks papa, we had lunch before we got home.”

Despite her words, he trailed after them, with the kind of slightly anxious twitchiness he always had whenever a guest came over. “Are you sure?” he asked, respectfully staying in the hallway when they got to Yodo’s room. “You don’t want anything to drink at least? I can-”

“We’re _fine_, just call us when dinner’s ready,” she said, shutting the door before he could continue pestering them.

Leaning against it until she was happy that he had walked back to his study, she let out a sigh before turning around. Chouchou had already made herself at home, flopping down on Yodo’s bed face-first, her luggage dropped carelessly on the floor.

She elected to leave it there – she didn’t like tidying up her own shit, she wasn’t about to start doing it for someone else’s – and instead took a flying leap on top of her friend.

Chouchou grunted, but didn’t scream, which was a little disappointing.

“Ugh, knew something like that was coming, you’re such a child,” she said, twisting her head enough to glance up at the weight attached to her back.

Yodo snorted, but shifted so that she was just leaning against her. “You love it,” she mumbled, seeing if she could rest her head against her friend’s back in such a way that she could hear her heartbeat. She had to wonder if her closeness would be appreciated if Chouchou knew about the real depth of her feelings towards her.

It was weird, they’d been best friends since the moment the met, they roughhoused all the time, Chouchou had never been shy about poking and prodding and tickling whenever Yodo let her guard down and none of that had ever bothered her before – well, except the tickling. That was just cruel – but then she hit eighteen and realised that _holy shit Chouchou was smokin’ hot_ and she was suddenly beset by feelings that she had not been prepared for in the slightest. They had turned what would once have been a friendly, comfortable interaction into something at once exhilarating and filled with an unexplainable tension.

The gentle tapping immediately derailed her train of thought. She leapt to her feet before she could be accused of something.

Gaara’s head appeared around the door, a tray hovering beneath it. “Here, I’ve brought you some tea.”

“I said we didn’t need anything!”

If he noticed her suspiciously loud voice, he didn’t mention it, instead just calmly saying, “Well, I still thought I should make you something, just in case,” as the tray floated into the room, supported by a platform of sand.

She groaned, long and loud, until it was carefully set down. “Ok, fine, can you go away now?” Because she was embarrassed enough around Chouchou without adding parental interference into the mix.

Her father levelled her with a heavy stare.

“…Thank you for the tea,” she muttered, trying to sound more defiant than she really felt.

He smiled in that way that always managed to make her feel better, no matter how annoying he could sometimes be. “You’re welcome.”

The door clicked shut, leaving the two girls alone once more.

Chouchou immediately began snickering, as she grabbed a cup. “Chill, girl, what’re you acting so weird for? I don’t mind Uncle Gaara hanging around.”

She puffed her cheeks out, before stalking over to the bed and sitting heavily next to her. “He still treats me like a little kid, even though I’m legally an adult now!” Maybe if she wasn’t pouting, her words wouldn’t have had her friend snorting unashamedly.

“Well, to be fair, you can be pretty immature,” she eventually managed to say, easily dodging the fist swung at her head, “but, you’ve grown up a lot these past few years, I’m so proud of you.”

“You’re the worst, you know that?”

For a moment, something in Chouchou’s eyes changed, a flash of emotion too fleeting to pin down, leaving Yodo all the more unsteady for it. Before she could question what was wrong though, a sly little smirk spread across purple-painted lips. “Is that what you _really_ think?” she asked, voice suddenly low and husky and if she didn’t know better, she might call it seductive – that was certainly the effect it was having on her.

She might’ve been able to make a snappy retort, except Chouchou had chosen this _exact moment_ to cross her legs, causing her skirt to riiide up, exposing juuust enough gloriously muscled thigh to shut down every one of her higher functions.

She didn’t even notice the door opening again, until a soft voice directly behind her blew away the fog in her brain.

“Kankuro made some snacks earlier, I forgot to bring them up with the-”

Her neck cracked at the speed with which she spun around. “DAD!”

“Yes?”

The grin stretching across her face felt like it was going to tear her face apart, even her dad looked a little uncomfortable at seeing it. “Thank. You. Now _please_ leave us alone.”

He quickly dropped the plate in his hands next to the tea he’d brought up earlier, then extracted himself from the room. She listened out for his footsteps to completely disappear, taking the opportunity to catch her breath and try to calm down her short-circuiting brain, before finally turning back around, to face Chouchou’s perfect legs and devastating smirk.

How had she been so oblivious to Chouchou’s beauty for so many years?

“You know, you didn’t answer my question,” she said, in that voice that left warm trails dancing across her entire body, “am I really the worst?”

“N-no, ‘course not.” Wow, suddenly she couldn’t be more thankful that her dad had brought up tea, because her mouth had never been so dry before. Hands shaking just slightly, she poured herself a cup and downed half of it. “I was just jokin’ around.”

Her eyes were still fixed on the delicious expanse of exposed skin however.

Chouchou followed her gaze with sharp, amber eyes, grin widening when she glanced back up. “Yodo~ where are you looking that’s so interesting?”

“Nowhere!”

She then had the absolute _gall_ to lean forward, framing her chest between her arms. “Oh? You don’t see anything you like?”

This… was too much, even for a joke. Chouchou’s actions were far too deliberate to be unintentional and too extreme to be a prank – Yodo was the one with the mean streak and even she wouldn’t mess with someone’s feelings like this – was it possible that her best friend’s feelings weren’t entirely platonic either?

“Do- do you-” was she actually thinking this? Was she actually going to _ask_ something so dangerous? There must be something very, very wrong with her. “Do you, maybe, li-”

“Chouchou, is there anything you would like to have for dinner?”

“FUUU-”

“Yodo. Language.”

“-UUUG! I was _gonna_ say _fug_.”

The look on Gaara’s face suggested that he didn’t believe her for a second, but he let it slide and turned once more to their guest. “Well, Chouchou? You can ask for anything you like.”

Yodo silently fumed as her friend lit up and began mulling over her options. Was he doing this on purpose? He had to be, surely, how else could he have such perfectly terrible timing. And Chouchou’s dark, alluring air had evaporated, leaving behind her usual cheerful self and leaving Yodo to wonder if she’d somehow slipped into a dream back there and had just been brought crashing back into reality by her dad’s determination to be a good host.

And she wasn’t sure if she should be enraged, or grateful.

Eventually, after much thought, Chouchou settled on a pork stew and Gaara was sent away to buy the necessary ingredients. And now that he was finally out of the picture for at least thirty minutes, Yodo could finally confess in peace.

Just as she was taking a slow, steadying breath however, Chouchou opened her own mouth. “So anyways, what was it you were gonna ask?” she asked, chipper and completely innocent, as though the last five minutes hadn’t even happened.

With her cheeks flaming, Yodo stomped over to the plate of snacks and tried to swallow four at once. “Forget it!” she snapped through her mouthful. “The moment’s gone forever.”

A fine, red eyebrow raised, but Chouchou didn’t question her on it, just grabbed some nibbles for herself before they were completely demolished. “Ok then, so what do you wanna talk about? Been on any cool missions lately?”

She took the change of topic with both hands and ran with it, immediately rambling on about how her brothers had nearly ruined their last disaster aid assignment.

But an idea had been planted and she wasn’t going to let it go so easily.

\---

Ok, today, she was going to say it. She had a plan, she had a good feeling, this time would be the one.

She had already dragged Chouchou out with her to one of the few parts of the city with some real greenery – though not her own garden, despite it being prettier, she’d had enough trouble with her dad yesterday; no way was she going through_ that_ again – she had spent half the night lying away coming up with a perfect script and she had buttered Chouchou up with this morning’s breakfast – she’d gotten up super early just to make a traditional Sunan spread, with a wide range of homemade breads, jams, cheeses, fruits, eggs and soup.

Suna folk did nothing by halves.

And she wasn’t gonna half-ass her confession either.

“It’s really cool you still get so many plants this time of year.” Chouchou was idly sniffing at some flowering cacti, her long, bright yellow dress making her stand out, even amongst the colourful flowers. The location was a success, now it was for the important bit.

“Thought you might like it,” she said, waiting until her friend was fully focused on her before continuing. “Hey, so, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about, something really important-” she hadn’t even _got_ to the scary part and yet she could still feel the sweat rolling down the back of her neck “-see, a couple months ago something changed, I don’t really get it at all, but I-I, I mean you’re- that dress- hey, are you even listening to me?”

She had to ask, because for the last twenty seconds, Chouchou’s gaze had been very much not on her, instead fixed on a point just above her shoulder.

It was probably for the best; “I mean you’re that dress,” wasn’t a line likely to win anyone’s heart any time soon, but she how could she be so distracted when she had put so much effort into making this perfect?

“Uh… why is your brother hiding in the bushes?”

“…What.”

Yodo spun around to glare in the direction that had so captivated Chouchou’s attention and, indeed Shinki _was_ lurking in the shadows; managing to look even creepier than usual. She tried to radiate as much ‘go away now’ energy as possible with her facial expression alone, but he remained unimpressed and unmoving.

She decided to barrel on past it. Sure, maybe her ideal confession scenario wouldn’t involve a family member ominously watching in the distance, but as long as he stayed far away, he couldn’t possibly ruin anything. “Oooookaaaay, well, as I was saying-”

But her friend didn’t seem to hear her. Chouchou’s gaze was utterly transfixed, she didn’t even seem able to blink. “…Now he’s giving me a thumbs up.”

Right, this conversation could wait, she had a fratricide to go commit.

\---

Kankuro’s snickering was a level of obnoxious that she’d never experienced before.

“C’mon kid, it can’t be that difficult.”

She lifted her head enough to glower at him, then dropped it heavily back against the kitchen table. “You’re one to talk, have you ever even tried to ask someone out?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know I ain’t interested in that shit, but I’m still better at flirting than you.”

As much as she’d like to disagree with him, she knew he was kind of right. Even if he wasn’t that invested, she had seen him do his thing at enough – otherwise dull – political events, to know that he was more than capable of finding hook-ups. Somehow. She still didn’t understand the appeal at all, but the fact that the only person she’d ever crushed on was a girl maybe explained it.

She still had her pride to uphold however.

“Fuck off, I’m _amazing_ at flirting!” She smirked when she heard the feet bouncing down the stairs, pushing herself out of her seat and slamming both hands down on the table with enough force to rattle the cups on it. “You’ll see, Chouchou’s on her way down and I’m gonna get her to go out with me, right here, right now!”

Kankuro leaned forwards until their noses were nearly touching, a wide, sinister grin exposing far too many of his teeth. “Do it then.”

“I. Will.”

Suddenly, Chouchou swept past them, mumbling a low, “Mornin’,” as she opened the fridge and began rooting around in it like she owned the place. If she had noticed the weird staring contest between uncle and niece through her grogginess, she had elected not to say anything.

Clearly she had just come from washing up; her hair was slightly damp and messy curls had yet to be tamed, she hadn’t put on any makeup and she’d thrown on a robe without much thought.

Yodo had never been more attracted to anyone in her entire life.

“Mornin’.” She glanced over to where Kankuro was waggling his eyebrows at her, wordlessly daring her to prove him wrong. “Sooo… you got any plans for today?” she asked, very distracted by the sweet, fruity scent wafting off of her – a Konoha perfume most likely, Suna ones were generally muskier, with hints of the many spices grown in the region.

Chouchou blinked at her a few times as she took a slow sip of juice. “Girl, I’m here to see you, my plans are gonna be the same as yours.”

Out of the corner of her eyes, Yodo could see her uncle withholding laughter. She tried to ignore the blush creeping up her neck. “Right, right, duh, must still be half asleep,” she muttered, wonky smile forced upon her lips.

Her attempt at playing it off with a laugh was immediately ruined by Kankuro blurting out, “You’ve been awake for an hour and a half already.”

She glared at him. He grinned at her.

He was gonna play dirty then, huh? Fine by her, she’d just have to bring out the big guns, something so irresistible that Chouchou would practically fall into her arms before her uncle could ruin it. “So, you… dress good, huh?”

Every eye in the room dropped down to the decidedly un-glamourous fluffy bathrobe she’d had to borrow from Araya – because Yodo still had to shop in the children’s section to find clothes that didn’t completely swamp her and Chouchou was over six foot of pure Woman.

It had a cute little duckling pattern on it.

The dam of Kankuro’s not-very-high restraint finally broke and he started howling with laughter. “Woooow, smooth!”

“I know right? I’m amazed at how she manages to function in everyday life,” Chouchou said, not bothering to hide her own amusement as she started sharing the story of that time a few years back that Yodo had been trying _so hard_ to forget about.

Entire body flaming red, she practically leapt out of the room, yelling behind her as she stormed up the stairs, “You’re both jerks and I hate you!”

\---

She wasn’t sure why Araya had insisted on joining them today, they were just doing a little souvenir shopping for Chouchou’s friends and family back home, hardly something he hadn’t seen before.

Though his presence was at least keeping her somewhat focused on their task, rather than on how lovely Chouchou looked in that bright blue dress; which was _very_. Very, very lovely. So lovely that she desperately wanted to remove it to see how much lovelier she looked underneath.

If this was what being in love felt like, she wondered how humans as a species had ever lasted this long.

Araya casually asked who they were shopping for first, immediately reminding her that she was in public and should really get her mind out of the gutter before she did or said something that would get them thrown out of the market and probably earn them a lecture on the importance of representing a village from the Kazekage.

To distract herself from her thoughts, she picked up a little clay figurine, some kind of lion thing. “Inojin would probably like this, right?” It wasn’t exactly like his ink beasts, but it was close enough; he could probably do with some new ideas anyways.

Before she got any response from the one she’d actually been asking however, Araya had leapt upon her, taking the object reverently in his hands and waved it in front of Chouchou’s eyes. “Wow, he’d love it! You’re so good at this Yodo! Isn’t she amazing?” The smile hidden by his mask was definitely made up for by the pure excitement in his voice.

“Hmm, I guess she’s pretty good, dunno that I’d go as far as amazing though.” Chouchou still took the lion though and wandered over to the stall’s owner to haggle.

Yodo took the opportunity to scrutinise her brother. “What’s _with_ you today?”

“Nothing, at all,” he said, utterly failing to sound like he wasn’t lying – he’d never been very good at it in the first place.

“Mhmm.”

“Really, there’s absolutely nothing going on. C’mon, it looks like she’s done, let’s go to a food stall next!” Quickly running off to grab Chouchou’s hand, he dragged them both off.

And things continued being weird throughout the day; as they browsed the market for interesting trinkets and regional delicacies to send back to Konoha, Araya took every opportunity – and several opportunities that didn’t actually exist – to praise Yodo to the high heavens, no matter how trivial her actions. She normally wouldn’t mind, her ego was big enough that it could take a little stroking every now and then, but everything about him today was just _screaming_ ulterior motive and that could only mean bad things for her.

Araya with a Plot was not someone to mess with and she was feeling very twitchy as a result.

So twitchy, that when she heard the slight hitch of breath behind her, she immediately spun and caught the heavy weight that was threatening to fall on her.

It must’ve looked ridiculous, a six-foot-something giant, who was eighty percent leg, being held like a princess by a scrawny, five-foot-on-a-good-day runt.

Araya looked up at her and threw his arms around her neck.

“Oh, Yodo, my hero!” He was practically weeping now, catching the attention of more than a few passers-by. “Thank you so much, who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been here to catch me in your surprisingly strong arms! I’m sure you would be an amazing catch for anyone!”

She closed her eyes and counted to ten before dropping his weight and letting him fall the whole five inches to the ground with a light thud. Everyone around them looked either confused or amused, as she bent down, grabbed her brother’s ankles and wordlessly dragged him into the nearest dark, abandoned alleyway.

When they were sufficiently alone, she leaned over to glare at where his eyes should be; she might not be able to see his face through the mask, but he could certainly see hers. And hopefully he would be rightfully scared of it. “Ok, seriously, _what_ the fuck.”

“I’m just trying to get Chouchou to see how cool you are, so she’ll want to go out with you!” he said, arms gesticulating wildly, even as he was lying on his back.

“What’s that got to do with you? I can take care of this myself.”

He sighed and slowly pushed himself so he was sitting upright. “Look, I support you one hundred percent in everything – you’re the best sister in the world – but you’re definitely going to screw this up if we leave you to your own devices, so we all agreed that you needed a hand to actually make this happen.”

“I’d be doing just fine if people didn’t keep distracting me-” she stopped, suddenly thinking back to everything that had happened the last week “-wait, _we_? You’re all in on this?”

“Well, Uncle was mostly just being himself and Dad was just going along with what Kankuro told him to do, but me and Shinki at least have your best interests at heart! He just thought it might be better to quietly support you from the sidelines while I think the more… direct approach would be better.”

Even if she’d wanted to respond to that, she couldn’t find the words, so she just spun round and stomped out into the street where Chouchou was still waiting for them. “You guys done?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

The peace lasted for all of five steps before Araya jogged up behind them and leaned down to whisper in Chouchou’s ear. “Yodo’s great, don’t you think?”

“I can hear you and I don’t need your help,” she ground out, teeth practically cracking with the force of her strained grin. Was he really planning to follow them around until she finally confessed? Sure, she hadn’t succeeded so far, but she was just waiting for the right time!

She couldn’t see Araya’s expression behind the mask, but she _knew_ she didn’t like it. “Are you sure about that?”

“Chouchou, let’s go look over there.” Grabbing her friend’s hand – and definitely not feeling a little giddy about it – she led her to a clothing stall, already eyeing up a beautiful, deep, ocean blue and gold scarf that would look amazing against Chouchou’s dark skin.

Araya remained undeterred. “I know she can be very dense, and stubborn, and she’s pretty lazy and her dress sense is… distinctive-”

“_This_ is what you call helping?” she snapped, bristling at his tone of refined disdain.

Just because he didn’t appreciate her butch, punk fashion choices, didn’t mean that she was a bad dresser. She was at least above her father and uncle in the family style rankings. Which was a real thing; Shinki kept a constantly updated list in his desk.

“-but she has some good qualities too! She’s fun cool and she always loyal to her friends and family, I bet she’d be a really great girlfrie-”

As much as she would love to just throttle him right now, she settled for grabbing his shoulders – mostly because she couldn’t actually reach his neck – and shaking vigorously until he shut up. “Go. Away. I’ve. Got. This.”

He carefully removed her hands and held them together between his own. “Look you don’t have to do it yourself; it’d be less painful for everyone if I just said it for you.”

“That ruins the whole point though!”

She could feel the Look, and she hated it. “Are you gonna do it yourself then?”

“I- wha- ye- no-” she looked around for someone to save her, unfortunately most of the civilians had grown bored of the show and returned to their shopping, the only person still watching was Chouchou herself, giggling softly, with her long hair shimmering in the sunlight. Swallowing a painful lump, she turned back to her brother, saying softly, “Look it’s hard, ok?”

“It doesn’t have to be, just be honest, I know that nothing bad will happen, trust me, you can do it, it’s really not so scary,” he said, tone gradually shifting from soft and encouraging to exasperated and critical, “I’ve asked out tons of people before and I don’t get this worked up about it, really I thought you were the brave one-”

“God! Fine!” She spun round, pointed directly at her crush and yelled at the top of her voice, “CHOUCHOU YOU LOOK GREAT IN THAT DRESS BUT IT’D LOOK BETTER ON MY BEDROOM FLOOR! Are you happy now?!”

Chouchou stared at her, completely still for a second, then burst out laughing.

Loud, unashamed guffaws probably weren’t the ideal reaction to a pick-up line, but, listening back to her own words in her head, she could understand how they’d gotten there. Still didn’t mean she couldn’t be offended by it though.

“Hey, quit laughing! I’m tryna be serious here!”

Araya crossed his arms, shaking his head slowly, clearly not far off of laughing himself. “And that’s the line you chose to be serious with?”

“Ok, _you_ shut up you’re no help at all,” she said, elbowing him in the stomach before snapping back to her friend, “and Chouchou stop laughing at a girl when she’s bearing her soul! Can’t even get some respect while confessing, honestly…”

Slowly, Chouchou straightened up, wiping a tear from her eye and pure delight still lighting her voice as she asked, “Yodo, are you saying that you like me?”

Fuck, how red was she right now? Had to be pretty bad if the burning of her skin was anything to go by – even the midday Suna sun felt cool by comparison. “Y-yeah, obviously,” she muttered, suddenly all too aware of how many eyes were upon them again.

“Finally!”

She blinked expressionlessly at Chouchou. “Huh?”

“Girl, I’ve been trying to get you to admit you like me for _months_, I really thought I had a winner with that ridiculous seduction act when I first got here.”

“If you knew then why didn’t you just say something!” she spluttered, defaulting to her usual anger while she was waiting for the joy to kick in.

Amber eyes rolled, but she was still grinning widely. “I’ve been in love with you since we were kids, I figured I’d let you stew for at least a little while, get some revenge for you being an oblivious idiot.” Chouchou had liked her for that long? How had she not noticed?

More importantly, however. “Wait, so are we, like… dating now?”

Closing the distance between them and leaning down, Chouchou stared deep into her eyes, mouth set in a hard line and brows furrowed heavily. “If you say you don’t want to after all this, I will literally throw you into the middle of a sandstorm,” she said, before her warm smile returned and she lightly pecked her on the cheek.

“Ha, I win!” Araya immediately managed to ruin the moment with his loud declaration.

Kankuro landed next to them with a thud; Yodo didn’t even see where he came from. “I call foul! We never agreed that you could get so personally involved!”

Family members began appearing out of the aether, until they were surrounded by her brothers, father and uncle. Her blood pressure short through the roof.

“Exact terms were never agreed upon, it’s your fault for being so vague, so you have to pay up.”

Yodo felt all feeling drain from her body. “…Were you all betting on this?” she asked, voice soft and chilling.

The sudden silence could’ve been cut with a rusty butter knife, it was so thick.

Araya was the first to attempt a response. “N-noooo, definitely not!”

“You just _said_ that you won!”

“Which I’m still not accepting, by the way,” Kankuro cut in, earning twin glares from Yodo and Araya both.

“Ok I’m not surprised by you three-” she glared at her brothers and uncle, who looked varying shades of ‘not especially guilty’ “-but even _you_ were in on it, papa?” Yes, she was bringing out the big, watery, puppy-dog eyes and no, she didn’t feel bad about it.

“Kankuro said he had a plan to make you very happy and I didn’t think to question him on it, I can only apologise.”

“My baby bro is a snitch! How could I let this happen, I’ve failed you, my brother…” Kankuro wailed, as though he wasn’t the main bad guy here; Yodo had absolutely no doubt the whole bet was his idea and she would _not_ be letting it go unpunished. Though her dad’s look suggested that he was definitely going to be dragging him off later to have a Chat with him first.

A heavy arm dropped across her shoulders and long hair tickled at her cheek as Chouchou leaned down to snicker in her ear. “Your family’s hilarious, I love it.”

She basked in the casual touch of skin against skin and decided that – if this was the reward – she would happily deal with a thousand meddling families. “You guys are lucky my girlfriend likes you, else you’d all be dead to me!”

Didn’t have to let them have the satisfaction of knowing that though.

\---


	3. Butch Hinata/Soft butch Karin - Teacher AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more hinakarin so soon!! the more i'm writing this ship the more i'm falling in love with it.. also butch hinata is Everything I Need In Life

\---

“Are you sure no one’s coming?” He’d been asking that question every five seconds for the last ten minutes and, honestly, Hikari was getting sick of it.

She casually elbowed the ladder her friend was balancing on, taking a little joy in the terrified squeal he let out. “Yeah, I’m sure, just hurry up so we can get out of here already.” Beside her, Ren snickered, before gently shaking the ladder himself.

“Would you both cut it out, I’m the one doing all the work y’know!”

“Ren came up with the plan and I made the stuff to go in the balloons, compared to that you’ve got the easy bit,” she said, peeking her head out of the door and looking both ways down the hall to check for intruders.

They had been waiting for this opportunity for weeks and soon, the moment would be at hand. Revenge was gonna be sweet.

“Ok, I’m done, let’s get outta here, quick,” Yuta said, jumping off the ladder and quickly folding it up.

Together, they gathered up any evidence of their mischief, checked the surroundings for anyone lying in wait, then, sharing a knowing smirk and snickering at each other, they turned around to head back to their classroom. The bell had already rung, but it was only Nara-sensei’s class, he wouldn’t punish them for tardiness – hell, he probably hadn’t even turned up himself yet.

“What do you three think you’re doing?”

As one, they froze in place, before slowly, sloooooowly, turning around to face the sharp voice that had silently snuck up on them. “K-Karin-sensei!”

They were screwed.

“Well?” she asked, staring down at them, arms crossed and foot tapping. A notoriously strict teacher had caught them, carrying a ladder, string, tape and empty water balloons in their hands and generally just looking mighty suspicious. No way was she going to let them out of this easy, not unless they had a bulletproof excuse.

“We were just…” She looked to each of her allies in turn, neither of whom giving her a response more useful than a shrug. “Juuust… going to change a lightbulb?”

Was she blinking that slowly on purpose, or was time just slowing for Hikari as her life passed in front of her eyes – all six years of it. “With balloons.”

“Um, these are-” _Think of something, quick_.

Finally, Ren stopped shivering in terror long enough up to help her out, saying, “For a class with Konohamaru-sensei later!” His excuse was even _almost_ believable.

“Really.”

When Ren failed to elaborate, Yuta jumped in to save him. “He’s uh… teaching us the rasengan?” Aaaand they were back to being screwed. Ok, maybe she hadn’t been able to come up with anything better, but she was still going to have to drag both her friends off and coach them on knowing when to keep their big mouths shut when they got out of this. _If_ they got out of this.

And judging by the ever-narrowing eyes of the scariest teacher in the entire academy, that was looking less likely by the second.

“You’re in your second year; rasengan is an advanced class only available to genin graduates.”

If she’d been in a better state of mind, Hikari might’ve wondered why she didn’t seem phased by the more obvious issue of why they would even need to bring water balloons to a class teaching an A-rank jutsu, but as it was, she just trembled in place, praying for an escape from this situation.

“Classes have started, what are you all doing out- oh, Karin-sensei, is something the matter here?”

Lightly jogging down the hall towards them, messy ponytail bouncing along behind her, was their salvation.

All three students shouted in unison, “Hinata-sensei!”

“These three were clearly up to something, I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it.” Glasses were adjusted as the shorter of the two women came to a stop beside the other. Seeing them standing next to each other, the difference was stark; where Karin looked cool and professional, in her button up shirt and tailored shorts – the only contrast to her smart appearance being her undercut hair – Hinata was all soft hoodies and a thousand layers, clearly she was only dressing for comfort, but it made her so much more approachable than almost every other adult working at the school.

Moral boosted by the soft presence of the kind teacher, Hikari found her voice again. “We haven’t done anything; this is all just a big coincidence!”

“I’m not buying that for a second.”

“Karin-sensei, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt,” Hinata said, reaching up to rest a light hand against the other woman’s shoulder. “I’m sure our students would know better than to lie to us.” The gentle smile on her lips was sharper than any of Karin-sensei’s glares.

Hikari twitched.

“In fact, why don’t we all go into the room together and see what happens?”

The three students exchanged a glance. “Uh, actually-” Ren started speaking, but was cut off before he could get anywhere.

“I mean, if you haven’t done anything, then I’m sure you would be happy to prove it.” She still wore the gentle smile, but, with every word out of her mouth, it seemed less and less kind; more and more cunning. “It would be quite easy.”

By this point, sweat was sliding down Hikari’s back like a waterfall. “Well, see, we _would_, except that we really have a class to be getting to now, don’t want to be late, right?”

Hinata blinked at them, smile not dimming for a second. “You’re already late, I’m sure a few extra seconds won’t hurt, I’ll even vouch for you to your teacher.”

A hand settled heavily on her shoulder, firmly pushing her toward the door. Hikari sent a desperate look to her friends – their expressions of pure terror perfectly matched her own – then, hopelessly, as a last-ditch effort, turned to Karin-sensei.

There was no mercy to be found in her glower.

As the teacher pulled open the door, she finally found the courage to scream, “NO, STOP!”

She closed her eyes, already knowing what was coming, waiting for the inevitable impact-

The rush of wind was halted with such speed that she swore she heard a little thunder clap. But, other than that, she felt nothing.

Sucking in a deep breath, she slowly opened one eye, squinting at the green blob hanging an inch from her nose. The relief flooding through her left her bones feeling like jelly – not too dissimilar to the gloopy substance she knew to be held within the water balloon’s thin shell, carefully mixed with a kind of dye that took a week to wash out – but she managed to stay mostly upright as she staggered back a few steps from the hanging balloon. Following the string it was attached to with her gaze, she saw the hand holding it firmly in place and, following the hand up a dark-skinned arm, she found it attached to a blank-faced Karin-sensei.

“Clear up this mess and get to your classes. Now.”

\---

The halls grew quiet, as they slowly walked away from the frantically apologetic students and she was thankful for it, because she definitely didn’t want anyone to hear them talk.

“You were going to let her get hit by that balloon, weren’t you?”

Hinata glanced at her with those huge, terribly innocent eyes of hers. “If she payed more attention in her classes, she would have been able to dodge it.”

She snorted, but still had to bite her own lip to keep the smirk concealed. “I can’t believe _I’ve_ got the reputation as the scary teacher, when you can go around pulling shit like that and still be everyone’s favourite.”

“Are you jealous?” _God_, that quietly confident air Hinata held around herself like an aura was just _devastating_.

Trying to play off her embarrassment – and slight horniness, they were in the workplace after all – Karin said, “As long as they take my lessons seriously, I don’t care if they like me or not.” Which wasn’t true at all; as much of a pain as some of them could be, there was a kind of fulfilment and excitement that she got from teaching that she’d never had in her entire time as a shinobi.

She just had a bad case of resting bitch-face and was a little awkward around kids was all.

And at this point, she didn’t want to ruin her reputation.

Feather-light fingers trailed up her spine, leaving trails of ticklish skin in their wake, even through her shirt. “Don’t worry, you’ll always be _my_ favourite.”

Red to her ears, she snapped her head away from her girlfriend so that she couldn’t see how happy that comment had just made her. Practically feeling the grin pointed at her back, she made a show of looking at her watch and muttering an excuse about having tests to score before her next class started and, with a short goodbye and a light peck to her cheek, she swiftly marched down the hall.

Hinata grabbed her hand before she could get very far however, easily pulling her back and gently bringing her down enough that their lips could meet in a brief kiss. “I’m taking you out somewhere nice tonight; I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“So bossy,” she murmured, biting at her lip lightly before pulling away. With a bashful grin and slightly wobbly legs, she managed to get halfway down the hall before soft words halted her in her tracks.

“Wear that suit I like, the one with the purple flowers on it.”

“Fine, but you better not show up wearing a ratty old hoodie again! You might not have any standards, but _I_ do.”

\---


	4. Butch Sakura/Tomboy Hina - Coffee Shop AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a request from the comments in this fic, for butch!saku/tomboy!hina, college au or coffee shop au <strike>guess i kinda squashed both in here though</strike>, took me a while to find the insp but once i got it this one just rolled out so easily, thank you for the req and hope you enjoy!

\---

It had been a long morning and Hinata desperately needed caffeine.

She’d had to wake up hellishly early – which might’ve been fine if she hadn’t been up until three in the morning desperately trying to finish her thesis in time for her first class – then spent almost an hour being jerked around by the _aggressively_ indifferent receptionist of her school’s laboratory, before learning that the time she had booked for her vital preliminary experiments, had in fact been given to another student and the next available slot wasn’t until the end of the week. Handily throwing a wrench in her entire year’s calendar that she would be trying to work around for months to come.

And, on top of all that, the heavens had opened up the second she stepped outside, releasing several days’ worth of water all at once, leaving her to trudge home through a downpour, or hang out in the waiting room of the lab until it passed.

With the smirking receptionist, who she was too polite to tell to fuck himself, but who she dearly hoped would suffer several minor inconveniences for the rest of the day.

She chose the cold, wet walk instead.

Perhaps it had been a mistake, she could probably have found an empty classroom to quietly study in for an hour or so if she’d tried, but with her mind only lightly tethered to reality in her current state, it was more likely she would’ve just had a cry-nap instead.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but if a lecturer found her like that again, someone was bound to try and contact her father to inform him of her struggles, and he would wield that knowledge like a sledgehammer against her dreams of a career of her own; one without constant parental oversight and criticism.

She was absolutely not going to let that happen. Right now, however, what mattered most was getting out of the rain.

Squinting against the water running off the hood of her coat, she searched for somewhere – _anywhere_ – that she could duck into and while away the time until her next lecture in a few hours. When she spotted a small café tucked away between a derelict bookstore and a corner shop that proudly called itself ‘Cheap-mart’ she didn’t care how dingy it looked, she just threw open the doors and shook herself off like a dog the second she was inside.

The barista leaning against the counter with his head in his hand glanced up at her; she offered him an awkward smile as she tried to brush down her damp hair. He returned with his own smile, one somehow even more awkward than her own, but straightened up and waved her over.

“Welcome, what can I get for you today?”

She didn’t bother to peruse the blackboards painted up behind him. “Black coffee, thank you.” Definitely not a drink that fit her usual tastes – she was more of a tea person – but she was about five seconds from collapsing on the cold, hard floor and wanted as little diluting the terrible, life-giving substance as possible.

If she’d had a syringe with her, she would have injected it directly into her bloodstream.

“Can I interest you in something to eat?” he asked, voice robotic and smile unnaturally fixed in place. “A sandwich, perhaps even one of our homemade cakes?”

The word ‘cake’ immediately caught her fraying attention and she stared into the glass display to scrutinise the options available with the same keen eye she would use for chemical analysis. It was actually quite impressive how… unappetizing they all looked; sponges were wonky, frosting looked like it had been applied with a _slingshot_, one was painted in the garish colours of a toddler given free reign of the crayon box and they had apparently all been cut with a chainsaw, she had no other explanation for the crumbling edges and uneven slices.

“I’ll have the coffee and walnut.” She glanced back outside, noting that the storm didn’t look like it would be passing any time soon and she had already skipped breakfast. “Actually, make that two slices.”

Dark eyes blinked at her in pure shock, before the man wordlessly fulfilled her order, only breaking his silence to tell her the cost and exchange cash.

She barely noticed, taking her plate and her cup and her sopping bag, she stumbled to the nearest table and sank down into the wooden chair like it was a plush, feather pillow. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the barista slipping through a door that presumably led to a kitchen; she might’ve found that a bit unprofessional, if it weren’t for the fact that she was literally the only customer in right now.

As she gulped down half of her coffee – grimacing at the taste, but pushing through it regardless – she wondered if the place was always this quiet. Sure, it was a little out of the way and if she hadn’t been looking for somewhere to escape the weather, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it was even there, but it had a stylish interior, wall painted with abstract ink patterns and rustic furniture.

And, when she shoved a generous forkful of cake into her mouth, she had to wonder even more about how a café with such _incredible_ goods had flown so completely under the radar.

She literally closed her eyes and _moaned_.

Her fatigue was completely forgotten as she eagerly shovelled another mouthful between her lips, then another, and another. She was onto the second slice in about thirty seconds.

“Holy shit, I didn’t actually believe it…”

Hinata glanced up, absolutely no clue who would be disturbing her mid-meal and, even if her mouth _hadn’t_ been full of soft, melting deliciousness, she probably wouldn’t have been able to say anything.

The short, stocky woman, with arms practically bursting out of the sleeves of her chef’s jacket – which presumably had been white at one point, but was now littered with so many stains in basically every conceivable colour that it was basically tie-dye – pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down heavily, crossing her arms on the table and leaning forwards with a slight frown. “Someone actually bought a cake.”

She was still chewing and had to wash down her bite with a generous gulp of coffee, just to respond.

“Huh?”

Very eloquent. Her father would be proud.

“_No one_ buys the cake, we get about fifteen customers a day, I would remember someone buying the cake before-” she jerked a thumb in the direction of the barista leaning boredly against the counter “-Sai was so shocked he immediately came into the kitchen to tell me about it.”

That a customer actually choosing to eat the food on offer was such an anomaly that the chef had to come out of the kitchen, just to see if it was true, was a damning report on the state of their business. “Really?” she asked, looking down at the slice on her plate. “I can’t imagine why, it’s delicious.”

Dark brows narrowed over her green, green eyes. “Are you making fun of me? Did my mother send you here? Are you an EHO?” The woman was standing up now, leaning ever further into her personal space, flour-covered hands steady on either side of the table. With her face only a few inches away, Hinata could pick out individual pores on her nose and several old, faded scars. “I assure you; all my paperwork is up to date,” she said slowly, in such a low, threatening tone that left Hinata less assured than ever before.

She waved her hands in front of her face and backed away as far as the chair would let her. “I don’t’ know what that means and I came here on my own, I just… really like the cake?”

The speed at which the chef’s entire demeanour switched left Hinata feeling a little dizzy. Suddenly her bright eyes were sparkling and she had a wide, toothy grin stretching across her face as she asked, “For real? Even though it looks like absolute dogshit?”

“Well, as long as it tastes good, I don’t think the appearance really matters that much.” A statement easily reinforced by the fact that she was wearing an old, faded hoodie and some leggings she’d technically bought just for the gym, but were so comfortable that they’d wormed their way into her everyday wardrobe anyway.

Also, she was still soaked through and probably looked like a bedraggled cat, but she was trying to ignore that right now.

“_Finally_, someone who appreciates my genius!” Slapping a hand against the table hard enough to make it rock on its uneven legs, she turned around to shout at her co-worker, “You hear that Sai?”

“As glad as I am to have a satisfied customer, I would point you to the forty-seven other slices of cake that have been consistently rejected by everyone else who’s come in today.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, but Hinata got the feeling that he really was trying his best. “You can’t decorate cakes for shit and no one wants to eat them.”

The scoff and dramatic rolling of eyes suggested that this was a regular argument for these two. “Ignore him, he just thinks that he’s a better artist than me-”

“I am an objectively better artist than you.”

“Anyway-” she displayed a middle finger at him over her shoulder, all while keeping her gaze fixed on Hinata “-I’m really glad you like the cake, I know my presentation’s a bit… rough, but I know what tastes good, just wish more people would give it a chance.”

Hinata had to give a wobbly smile at the woman’s childish pout; ohhh she was in trouble. “You do have a talent for flavour, I must admit,” she said, “I think this is the best coffee cake I’ve ever had.”

“_Right_? I’ve been playing around with some ideas for new recipes- actually wait here a sec, I’ll go cut you off some samples.” She was charging through the door leading to the kitchen before Hinata could object, but, looking at the rain still hammering down against the windows and taking another bite of beautifully soft cake… she could think of worse ways to spend an afternoon than being fed a selection of baked goods by an incredibly handsome woman with biceps that could probably crush steel.

Maybe she could even come up with an excuse to touch them. Just to satisfy her scientific curiosity.

\---

By the time the rain had settled down to a slow drizzle, she had completely forgotten everything that led her to the café in the first place, so distracted was she by chatting to the charmingly exuberant chef – who was called Sakura, she quickly learned.

They had shared several slices of experimental cakes and, while none of them looked very pretty, Hinata had been blow away by the taste each and every time.

If her alarm hadn’t started buzzing insistently, she would’ve happily spent the whole day getting lost in sugar and soft pink hair and distractingly shifting muscles and a boisterous, snorting laugh that had absolutely no right being as cute as she found it. Alas, she still had classes that she could not afford to skip and she really shouldn’t keep Sakura from her work for any longer. Even if she didn’t seem to have much to do.

As she gathered her things and pulled on her coat, she glanced down at the woman with a soft smile. “Thank you for all the wonderful food, and conversation.” She rummaged through her bag and drew out her wallet, dropping a few notes in the tip jar as she passed. One benefit to coming from a wealthy family, she afford to be very generous.

Sai grinned at her, slapping a hand over Sakura’s mouth before she could object to the payment – and judging from the look in her bright eyes, that was almost certainly what she was planning.

Rolling her eyes as she pushed his hand away, she leaned over the counter to grin widely at Hinata. “Please, come again!”

“Yes, and bring friends with you next time, as you can see, we’re pretty desperate for business.”

“Idiot, don’t tell that to the customers!” Sakura yelled, slapping a hand to her forehead hard enough to leave a red mark there.

He gave her a Look. “It’s advertising.”

“No, it’s desperation, you _better not_ have been telling that to everyone who comes in here.”

“Are we not desperate?” He asked, voice completely even and reasonable. “Do I have to show you our account books again? Maybe you should focus on trying to find a cake decorating course, before you start criticising me.”

Hinata laughed softly to herself, but not quietly enough that she didn’t catch the attention of both workers. She smiled at the pair, marvelling at their bizarre friendship that she wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of. “I’ll tell everyone I know that the food here is delicious and they need to come try it-” she glanced at Sakura, who was almost _glowing_ at the compliment, and had to duck her head to hide her blush “-and I live pretty close by, I’m sure I’ll be coming in here a lot more too.”

Before she could rush out of the doors, a voice called out to her, “Hey, what’s your favourite kind of cake? I wanna make it for the next time you come here.”

She stopped and had to take several calming breaths before turning around. “Anything with cinnamon,” she said, not wanting to give herself too much hope, but unable to deny the rush of excitement fizzing through her veins at the thought of spending more time – much more time – with the wonderful, strange, charming baker.

Sakura nodded, eyes already sparking with ideas. “Alright, I’ll make you something amazing, you better come back to taste it soon!”

“I will,” she said, stepping out into the damp afternoon, feeling lighter than air and ready to take on the whole world.

\---


	5. Butch Hinata/Femme Sakura - Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another tumblr req, for butch hina/femme sak at a party which i have dutifully fulfilled despite never having gone to a party in my life! this one gets a bit spicy near the end, but it's more suggestive than smutty so yeah

\---

“Yo, Hina! Thought you weren’t comin’?”

She waved at her best friend as he bounded over to her – his ridiculous, floppy ears bouncing behind him – and bumped his fist against her already waiting one. “I wasn't planning to,” she said, eyeing his onesie with a barely suppressed snicker. “What are you wearing?”

“I'm a dog and Akamaru’s a cat.” Now that it had been pointed out to her, she did indeed see how the huge dog had been given a headband with some pointy cat ears and a tabby-cat paintjob; presumably with some pet-friendly dye, Kiba cared too much about animals to be irresponsible, even for a joke. Still wouldn’t fool anyone, there weren’t many cats around that were four feet tall, but she could appreciate the effort. “It’s clever!”

“Mhmm.” She absently scratched around Akamaru’s ears, as she glanced around the room. “Hey, you haven’t seen Sakura around have you? Chouji called me over to take her home, apparently she’s gotten a bit… rowdy.”

Kiba snorted. “That’s an understatement, last time I saw her she was teaching Naruto to suplex Sasuke-”

_Naturally_. Digging her fingers into her temples, Hinata groaned.

“-that was like, half an hour ago now though, haven’t seen her since.”

She thanked her friend for the help and moved further into the house, trying to drown out the thumping beat as she tracked her girlfriend down, asking friends as she stumbled across them, discovering even more reasons for Sakura to never be allowed near alcohol ever again and following their leads to her current location.

The path of destruction left behind by the woman was clear to see.

“Hinata! Thank god you’re here, sorry I called you so late, but I didn’t know what else to do.” Chouji rushed over the second his eyes caught her and he quickly guided her back to the room he’d been guarding. “She’s in here.”

Mumbling her thanks, she stepping into what was presumably a dining room, though with every surface covered by either bottles, cans or plastic cups.

“Hiiiiiinaaaaaa!”

Finally, she laid eyes upon her target; a very drunk, very unruly werewolf, arm-wrestling a guy with biceps the size of footballs and surrounded by people either screaming her contestant on, or clutching their own arms gingerly.

Honestly, the only surprising thing about the scene was that the werewolf was entirely pink.

“Hina, Hina, Hina, Hin-”

She stepped over the bodies littering the floor between them and laid a hand against Sakura’s shoulder before she could get too carried away. “I like your sideburns.”

The woman grinned up at her, turning away from her opponent. Not that that gave him any advantage, she could practically hear his teeth grinding to dust with how hard he was clenching them, while Sakura could speak with a completely calm, if a little slurred, voice, “Feel ‘em! Took fuckin’ ages to glue on.”

Clearly, a lot of effort had gone into this costume, patches of pastel pink fur – dyed to match her long, artfully dishevelled hair – were carefully placed all over her body, blended into her skin with bright paint and her pretty blouse and shorts had been artfully shredded to make it _really_ look like she’d just grown three sizes and burst right through them. It helped that she already had bigger muscles than most people could even dream of.

“They’re very impressive,” she said, stroking down the stiff hairs on her girlfriend’s cheeks, “but, I think that we should get you home now-”

The cut-off screech and agonising thud of skin against wood gave her a minor heart attack.

Sakura ignored the wailing of the poor guy who’d just had his hand slammed forcefully against the table and whirled on Hinata, not even taking a second to gloat in her victory. “Whaaaat, no way, you just got here! C’mon, lets go get some drinks, to the drink-place!”

“I think you’ve had enough sweetie, let’s go.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a worried Chouji hovering by the door, clearly waiting to jump in and help her if need be.

Hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her back. Sakura blinked up at her with hazy, watery eyes, before weeping into her stomach, “Nooooo, you should stay here and party with us!”

“I’m not into parties, you know that, come on now.” Hinata started inching towards the door, dragging her limpet along behind her, but she only managed to get a few steps in, before she was suddenly released and forced to watch her girlfriend slump to the floor, arms crossed, pouting like a child.

“Nuh-uh, not goin’ anywhere.”

She absolutely _could not_ keep up with Sakura’s wild mood swings when she was drunk. “I will drag you if I have to.”

The woman whined and flopped down even more, until she was lying down, arms still crossed, on the hard, wooden floor. Resigning herself to her fate, Hinata leaned down and grabbed hold of her shoulders and started to haul her away.

It would’ve been easier if her girlfriend wasn’t the approximate size, shape and weight of a truck.

She managed to drag her halfway across the room, but that was about as far as they got, before Sakura’s dead weight hit the body of some poor, unconscious sod and stayed there. Hinata glared down at the woman – though right now she was behaving more like a five-year-old – who met her stare with a toothy grin. “Ohhhhh nooooooooo, looks like we’re stuck heeeereeeeeeee.”

Looking to the heavens for patience, her eyes passed over the forms of the men sulking in the corner, still clutching aching arms. And she got an idea.

“…I’ll wrestle you.”

Sakura blearily blinked up at her. “Huh?”

The wheels were franticly spinning in her head as she made her plan. “An arm wrestle, if I win,” she said slowly, “you have to come home with me, if you win, then I’ll stay here with you.”

Unfocused eyes suddenly sharpened. Without even bothering to say anything, Sakura leapt up, grabbed her hand and pulled her back to the table. She was sat down, waiting with her arm already in position, before Hinata could even catch her breath. Taking a deep inhale, she sat down in the opposite chair, carefully kicked off her unwieldy boot, trapped her sock under her heel to peel it off and entwined her own hand with her girlfriend’s, bracing herself against the sturdy table and pointedly ignoring the small crowd gathering around them.

“On three,” Sakura said with a smirk. “One, two-”

She wouldn’t be able to beat her. As physically strong as she was – and Hinata was_ very_ strong – Sakura was a whole other beast and had much more experience in this particular sport.

She wouldn’t win a fair fight. But Hinata wasn’t afraid to fight dirty.

“Threeek!”

“Something wrong, sweetheart?” Hinata asked, as though her foot _wasn’t_ running slowly up and down the inside of Sakura’s leg.

Their hands bobbed back and forth, entire arms shaking with effort as they battled, Hinata kept her focus on what was going on _under_ the table though. Keeping her calm, innocent smile fixed on her face, as she skirted around the patches of fur stuck to her shins, gently brushing up and down smooth skin at a slow, fixed pace.

“You’re cheating!” Sakura whined, arm still held strong, but eyes drifting in and out of focus.

“How can I be cheating, when we never made any specific rules against it?” Her bare toes skimmed further up, tickling just behind a knee before sliding across a hard, muscled thigh.

“I’mmmm-making it a rule now!”

She curled her toes, lightly massaging the skin beneath them. “Ah-ah, can’t change the rules in the middle of a game, that’s not fair.” Ok, maybe she was taking just a little too much joy in the soft flush on her girlfriend’s cheeks and slight quiver to her lips as she pulled in shaky breaths, but as she brushed against the hem of her shorts, teasing the area _so close_ and yet _so far_, she couldn’t stop herself from getting a little excited too.

Her love of tormenting her lovers into trembling desire was almost as big a liability as Sakura’s ridiculously sensitive legs.

Around them, people were cheering and screaming for a victor to the match, thankfully too wasted to notice the second match happening just out of sight. Despite her overwhelming advantage, Sakura’s arm was beginning to tilt ever closer to the table, staying strong, but gradually losing ground as Hinata pushed her to her limits and rubbed slow circles into the apex of her inner thigh.

She had to bite her lip at the utterly _delicious_ sounds her girlfriend was trying to hide, intermixed with grunts of effort as she attempted to push her arm back to safety.

“You’re looking a little out of breath, love,” Hinata crooned, as though she wasn’t equally wrecked, but the full-body shiver and low moan was _more_ than worth it. And it was the perfect opening for her final move.

Subtly bracing herself for a final push, she very gently stroked her toes across the fabric covering the one area she’d been pointedly avoiding until now.

With a hard smack and high-pitched keen, she won.

But, the revelling in her victory could wait, right now she had a very worked-up, very delectable girlfriend to take home so she could properly worship her in private. She immediately withdrew her foot and shoved it back into her boot – the sock left forgotten on the floor – pulling Sakura up by their still clasped hands and stomping out of the house.

Maybe the party hadn’t been so bad after all.

\---


	6. Butch Sakura/Femme Ino - Domestic AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another ao3 req, for a butch sak/femme ino domestic drabble! y’know i’ll say one thing for this req theme, it’s got me describing character’s clothing a hell of a lot more than i usually do..

\---

She poked her head through the front door cautiously, scanning around for any sign of her.

With the entrance declared clear, Sakura slipped silently into the house and shut the door as softly as she could, all the while wary of both the house’s other occupant and the large, heavy box held in her left hand. It wasn’t that far to the office, if she could get in unnoticed, then it would all be smooth sailing from there.

She slowly crept forward, the stairs her goal, peeking around every corner as she went, the living room was empty, but she swore she could hear faint humming from the kitchen.

Ok, that was fine, the kitchen wasn’t in her direct path, she could easily sneak upstairs without being seen, so long as she was quiet. Taking a deep breath, she placed one foot on the first step. The second one creaked, as did the sixth and ninth, she would have to skip them if she wanted this to work out – normally not an issue, but right now she had an unwieldy weight to contend with as well. But she could do this, she’d been practising for the last few days, this was no problem at all.

When she was just two steps from the top, the box in her arms let out a high-pitched cry.

Her heart stopped dead for several seconds, as she waited for the tell-tale sound of feet against floorboards, completely frozen in place. Nothing. Releasing her held breath, she shushed at the box, before continuing her journey.

From here it was a straight shot to the office, second door on the left, nothing to get in the way, she had _won_. As soon as the door was shut behind her, she let out a sigh and gently placed the box on the floor, flapping her loose tank top to try and cool herself down a little – it wasn’t a particularly hot day, but she’d been tense with terror and excitement for the last hour or so and she’d never quite gotten over her panic-sweating – she had just leaned down and opened the latch on it when she heard footsteps echoing down the hallway.

She flew out of the office and slammed the door behind her, leaning against it and all but panting as Ino stopped, hand still raised from where she had been about to knock on the door, wearing an understandably confused expression.

Sakura plastered a forced grin onto her face. “Heeeey beautiful,” she said, reaching up to kiss her wife’s cheek.

Ino leaned down a little to help her, but was still giving her a strange look. “Thought I heard you moving around up here,” she said, brushing a hair through her long, perfect, silky hair, “why didn’t come tell me you were home? I was just making some tea, could’ve got you a cup ready too.”

She glanced at the office door, then back to her wife. “Actually, I think I’m good, why don’t you just go have your drink?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Ino asked with a grin, clearly joking, except that, yeah, Sakura kinda did want her to go away right now. A fact which Ino quickly picked up on, _curse her terrifying intuition_. “Oh. You actually are.”

“Not like that! I just… have something I need to get out of the way, y’know?”

A fine brow rose. “That’s pretty vague-” she crossed her arms, fabric of her – unfairly revealing – wrap top swishing as she did. And really, how was Sakura supposed to concentrate on her mission when her beautiful, amazing wife was standing _right there_, wearing that deep plum skirt that hugged her hips and showed off enough of her long, long legs to drive Sakura mad. “You’re up to something, aren’t you?”

“Whaaaat, noooo! I just have something I need to get done for work tomorrow, boring stuff, but if I don’t do it now then I’ll forget about it later.” There, perfectly reasonable explanation, she was great at this!

A soft thud filtered through the door behind her.

Ino’s eye narrowed on her and Sakura could feel the sweat dripping down her spine. “What was that noise?”

“Probably just the neighbours playing their TV too loud again?” Shit, her voice was starting to tremble, she had to divert the flow of this conversation and _fast_. “Anyway, what do you want for dinner? I’m pretty sure we’ve got some eggs that need to be used up-”

A second thud. Quickly followed by frantic scrabbling.

“Ok, seriously, what are you hiding.” Ino didn’t bother asking, nor did she wait for her to move, instead just placing a hand against her shoulder and giving her a hard shove.

Sakura stayed firm, earning a foul look from her wife. Once more, she was pushed, once more she held position and placed a solid hand against the doorknob before she could get any ideas. Behind her, there was the ominous sound of something scraping against wood. “Or… maybe they’re putting up some new shelves?”

Ino looked thoroughly unimpressed. “You do realise how obvious you’re being, right?”

“I’m not hiding anything!” she yelled, despite every one of her brain cells screaming at her to just shut up. And her declaration clearly didn’t sway Ino either.

Her wife gave her a long, hard stare, lasting almost a minute – long enough for Sakura to wonder if she wasn’t considering just giving up – before a delicate hand jabbed into her side, sending electric prickles across her entire body.

She leapt back instinctively, clutching at her stomach to try and smother the ticklish sensation still lingering there, giving Ino plenty of room to quickly throw open the door and step inside.

Pushing through her discomfort, Sakura leapt onto her back, sending her toppling forwards onto the thankfully thickly carpeted floor with a screech. “Shit, I’m sorry! Are you hurt?” she asked, lifted herself up enough that her considerable weight wasn’t crushing her comparatively delicate wife down, but still hovering over her and keeping her trapped.

Ino groaned into the carpet, but quickly snapped, “What the hell is _wrong_ with you, what are you hiding in here that’s soooo…”

Sakura winced. Well, this was officially an unmitigated disaster.

Any lingering pain was ignored as Ino stared at the creature in front of her. “Oh, my, god,” she whispered, so soft that Sakura had to lean down to hear her properly, which a very bad idea, because the speed at which Ino pushed herself up, lead to the back of her head colliding heavily against her chin.

Both women fell back to the floor in a groaning, tangled heap. As the pain faded, however, Sakura found herself laughing, soft snorts gradually growing into mildly hysterical cackling.

Ino soon joined her, carefully peeling their aching limbs apart and sitting back up, rubbing at the back of her skull. “Fucking hell, are your bones made of steel or something?” she asked, clearly not expecting a real answer from Sakura, who still couldn’t stop laughing long enough to pick herself up. “Ok, calm down idiot, you’re scaring our _guest_.”

The reminder of the cause of their current predicament brought her back to reality long enough to push herself onto her elbows and try to halt her snorts. Also, she badly needed to breathe, but that was secondary.

“Why didn’t you just _tell_ me?” Ino sounded more frustrated than she looked – her soft, beautiful smile betraying her true feelings.

Sucking in deep breaths and rubbing at her aching cheeks, Sakura followed her wife’s gaze to the ginger cat cautiously watching them from under the desk. “I wanted to surprise you,” she said, carefully shutting the door again, just in case the nervous animal decided to bolt off into the house, and get trapped somewhere – they still had a lot of pet-proofing to do and the shelter had recommended keeping the new cat to a single room until it was comfortable with the new environment. “I was planning a whole dramatic reveal and everything.”

“Well, I’m definitely surprised-” she held out a hand to the cat and made gentle cooing noises to call it over “-but you know I would’ve been just as happy if you’d just _told_ me you were getting a cat.”

“That takes all the fun out of it though!”

Ino rolled her eyes and elected to ignore that, instead focusing completely on the large ball of fluff, who was slowly relaxing and taking cautious steps towards the pair, whiskers twitching as it sniffed the air around them. “Oh, you are just gorgeous! Aren’t you baby? Yes, you _are_! Do they have a name?” she asked, as the last of its nerves dissipated and it allowed her to scratch under its chin.

“The shelter called her Gingersnap, but if you want to change it-”

“Ohmigod! Gingersnap! You are just the most precious little girl, I love you so much, look at that sweet little nose, I just want to boop it!” By this point, Ino had dragged the cat into her lap and was lavishing it with smooths, her eyes lit up with pure glee and mouth stuck in a wide, giddy grin. Gingersnap for her part was purring like a jackhammer – which Sakura was maybe a_ little_ jealous of, it took several days of visiting the pet shelter before she could so much as touch the normally skittish animal.

Clearly Sakura was going to have to start fighting to get attention from anyone in this household.

Suppressing a snort, Sakura shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around Ino’s waist, leaning heavily into her side and watching the pair with soft eyes. Well, now that the cat was – quite literally – out of the bag, she could at least get Ino to give her a hand deciding where to put all the new bowls and toys and litter boxes still stacked in the office. She glanced around the room, wondering what to sort out first, when she noticed something lying on the floor.

“So, I guess you’re not mad at me anymore,” she said with a smirk, watching Ino fawn over the cat as it rubbed against her well-manicured hand and guided her to smooth under its chin.

“I still expect a full written apology by tomorrow and you’re paying for my medical bills-” she turned her head and pressed a lipstick stain into Sakura’s cheek, before immediately returning to the new love of her life “-but no, I am not mad.”

“…And will you stay not mad if I tell you that Gingersnap knocked your favourite vase off the desk?”

\---


	7. Butch Yodo/Femme Chouchou - Rival Music Shop AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a request for butch yodo/femme chou, in the same rival music shop au as an old yodochou drabble of mine ([over here](https://artlessictoan.tumblr.com/post/174978202084/if-you-still-take-requests-i-would-like-to)), god these two are just an absolute joy to write..

\---

She carefully examined her reflection in the shop window, brushing some stray hairs back into place, adjusting her miniskirt to show off a little more leg, before pushing open the poster-laden door and stepping through it with the practised confidence of a supermodel.

As embarrassing as it was to practice her strut in the mirror at home, she had to admit, the effect was well worth it.

The door creaked slightly as it closed behind her and Chouchou was immediately hit with the increasingly familiar scent of sweat, leather and – weirdly, for a store dedicated to all things grungy and hardcore – sandalwood. She had been told by Sarada, that Yodo always lit incense as soon as she got in, while they were getting ready to open the shop.

It was discovering little things like that that kept her coming back, time after time, in the hopes that maybe she’ll find yet another excuse to fall just a _little_ more in love with the tiny ball of chaos, verve and idiocy that was Yodo.

As usual, the shop was empty. She glanced around, idly wondering how the hell they were still in business when, in all the times she’d visited, she’d never seen more than three people browsing the aisles at once. Yodo insisted that metalheads, while not overly abundant in the general population, were extremely dedicated to their genre, however Sarada had explained that Yodo came from a wealthy family and had a doting adoptive father who was very generous with his money and would do anything for his children.

Just another surprising discovery and another butterfly in her stomach.

When a thorough search of the shop floor revealed no Yodo, she casually hopped over the counter and poked her head in the storeroom.

A smirk immediately spread across her face. The short blonde had her back to her and apparently hadn’t even realised that anyone was there, judging by the bright wires trailing down from her ears; Chouchou could hear the muffled drumming the earbuds were emitting from across the room.

She stepped closer. “You know, it would be really easy for someone to rob you right now,” Chouchou said.

Yodo didn’t respond, just kept sorting through CDs and nodding her head along to whatever she was listening to. Raising an eyebrow, Chouchou snapped her fingers experimentally. Yodo mumble-sang a few incomprehensible words and started tapping her foot.

_Oh, she’s just _asking_ for it!_

Hovering just behind her target – who was still utterly engrossed in the bass thudding through her earphones – and before she could think better of it, she lightly pressed a finger to the middle of her spine and ran it all the way up to her neck.

“HAH!” Chouchou barely registered the surprisingly gruff shout, before Yodo spun on her heel, fist already swinging.

Incredibly, she managed to land her hard, bony knuckles right on Chouchou’s elbow.

“AGHHH FUCK! WHAT THE-” Yodo ripped out her earphones “-_Chouchou_? What the fuck are ya doing? I nearly beat the shit outta you! Fuck, my _fist_.”

Gripping her arm like it was about to fall off, she had to fight through the shudders racking her entire body before she could reply, “How did you hit me right on the funny bone? _Fuck_.” They were both still swearing and groaning, clutching their respective aching body parts tightly.

Chouchou sucked in a sharp breath as the last of the shakes faded to nothing. Elbow still hurt though. “Ok, learned my lesson, never doing that again,” she said, laughing through the pain.

“What were you even expecting to happen?” Yodo asked, a justifiably annoyed look on her face.

“I dunno, was kinda hoping I might get a cute little squeal out of you or something-” which she still desperately wanted to hear, but was willing to accept that she would have to find a different tactic in the future; maybe she was ticklish? “-I’m sorry, I promise I won’t sneak up on you anymore, but you _do_ realise that your shop is open, right? Maybe you should turn down the volume enough that you can hear when the door opens.”

Cheeks puffing up like a hamster, Yodo replaced the earbuds, picked up the box of CDs she had been sorting and pushed past her, shouting behind her as she disappeared through the door, “Y’know I don’t come into _your_ shop and criticise _your_ work habits.”

Trailing behind her, Chouchou leaned against the counter and watched her friend return to her task, occasionally glancing at the empty store.

“You should at least turn down the volume a little, my ears are hurting in sympathy.”

“God, you’re worse than my _dad_,” she mumbled, though her hand did drift down to her phone and the loud, heavy beat faded to a faint, tinny noise. It was mostly drowned out by the clacking of plastic cases as Yodo moved albums into incomprehensible piles. Chouchou stared at the band names trying to find some link – or even a single familiar name at all – but came up blank.

She picked up the top CD in the pile closest to her and casually began reading through the track list. “So, what’re you listening to?” she asked.

“Oi, don’t be messin’ up my system.” She didn’t try to take it back though. “And none of your business.”

“C’mon, tell me!”

“You wouldn’t know them anyways.” For someone who was generally down-to-earth, Yodo had an _amazingly_ pretentious streak in her.

She raised a brow, but Chouchou was still grinning uncontrollably when she said, “Wow, music snob much?” Dropping the CD back on the appropriate stack, Chouchou turned all her attention to her new game. “Gimme a hint, rock? Metal? Punk?”

“You’re not gonna get it-”

“Just because I’m not hugely into this stuff, doesn’t mean I’m completely ignorant.” In fact, she had quite a good knowledge of classic rock and metal; her dad played it all the time when she was a kid and she still had a nostalgic soft spot for the genre, even if she had mostly gravitated toward pop, funk and soul as she’d gotten older. “I’m not going to stop bugging you until you tell me.”

Yodo gave her an unplaceable look and silently picked up a pile and quickly stomped toward the ‘grindcore’ aisle.

She wasn’t about to give up that easy. Chouchou followed her, playing a very one-sided game of twenty questions as she went, pushing the limits of her knowledge of Yodo’s favourite music. Outside of the occasional grunt and assertions that she was never going to find out who it was, Yodo remained unresponsive.

Well, she couldn’t be having that, the whole _point_ of her teasing was to get a reaction, to get her _attention_, with the nebulous end goal of eventually kissing her and hopefully things would just carry on from there.

Disaster gay she might be, but she was at least self-aware about it.

But, until she found the courage to confess, she had an urgent mystery to solve and she’d just thought of a brilliant plan.

Asking what decade the song was from in her whiniest voice, she pulled her phone out and tapped out a quick message. Just a few seconds later, Yodo jumped and frowned down at the pocket of her tight jeans, the ones that were ripped to the point of being non-existent. Chouchou was _very_ fond of those jeans.

Leaning over her shoulder, Chouchou snickered at the text Yodo had just received – a simple ‘hey girl’ – and, before she could ask what the hell she was messaging her for when she was literally right next to her, she reached over and snatched the phone out of her hand, tugging the wire of the earbuds with it.

“Hey!” Yodo spun around, glaring up at her with those beautiful eyes, that could look anything from green, to blue, to grey, depending on the light. But, right now, they just looked… apprehensive?

That gave her pause, just for a moment, but when her friend gave no sign that she was _truly_ angry, which she knew from experience was a valid concern, she decided to push her luck and grin. “Hey, you weren’t telling me, so I’m just gonna listen for myself to find out.”

“NO!”

She held the phone high above Yodo’s head – not exactly a difficult feat, she barely reached her elbows, even when she _wasn’t_ wearing six-inch heels – and stuck her tongue out at her, before catching one of the dangling earbuds and sticking it in her own ear, all the while, nudging Yodo’s grasping hands away.

The tone was an immediate shock, much softer and lighter than what she’d been expecting, as was the perfectly clear, lilting voice of the female vocalist.

It was also very familiar and she found herself singing along for half a second before slowly saying, “Wait… I know this song, this is…” Suddenly, it all clicked together and she was biting her lip trying not to laugh. “Awwww, the scary punk rocker likes sugary bubble-gum pop!”

Yodo slapped a hand against her mouth and glanced around the – still empty – shop. “Not so loud!”

She raised her brows and gently peeled the hand from her lips, maybe revelling in the skin contact a little longer than appropriate. “Seriously? You’re that embarrassed?” she asked, watching in mild amusement as her friend kept looking over her shoulder, as though a horde of metalheads was going to materialise behind them any second to mock her taste in music.

It was a little cute, in all honesty. Or maybe it was just that _Yodo_ was so cute that everything she did gained an air of adorability.

“_No_, I just…” She bit her lip and, _god_, that was just unfair, because Chouchou really wanted to lean down and try it for herself. “You were raving ‘bout her new album the other day, figured I’d check it out, see what the fuss was about.”

Literally clapping her hands in joy, she released the most girlish squeal she’d probably ever made in her life. “Oh, that’s so sweet of you! So, what do you think?”

“It’s-”

Chouchou unconsciously leaned forwards, eyes almost popping out of her head as she waited in terrified anticipation for the verdict. She didn’t know when Yodo’s opinion had become so important to her, but she was silently praying that her taste in music had impressed her crush; or at the very least that it hadn’t made her decide that she was absolutely not cool enough to be hanging out with her and could she please leave the shop before her glittery pop songs scared off any customers.

“-really good. The middle’s a bit weak, but that guitar work is surprisingly solid for a pop artist and that song Paradise Sunsets probably has some of the best lyrics I’ve heard all year.”

She didn’t release a sigh of relief, mostly because she was already spewing out a rush of words that even she herself only half understood, so rushed and tripping over her words was she. “_Right_? I dunno that she’ll ever make another song that good, but it’s definitely one of my all-time faves.”

“Yeah, I’d never really paid much attention to her before, but I did skim through some of her older stuff too, there’s some really great stuff in there!” Those ever-changing eyes were shining with the same kind of excitement she always got when she spoke about discovering a new band, or when she sang on stage in front of a crowd of dozens, as though it were a crowd of thousands.

Music was such a huge part of her life – Chouchou’s too really – and seeing how much she loved and cared about a singer she had introduced her too…

“You know, I can think of a few similar artists I could recommend you, if you’re interested.”

Yodo gave her a blank look for a second, before her cheeks darkened and she gave a wide grin. “Sounds fun, but if you’re subjecting me to the mainstream, then I’m gonna be giving you a crash course in the history of metal in return.”

Even more time spent in the company of the cutest, coolest woman in the world, bonding over their shared passion for music? Yeah, she could live with that.

\---


	8. Butch Sakura/Ino - Reunited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time it’s an ao3 req, for inosaku running into each other after years apart when butch!sakura has grown into herself more! y’know my original plan was like a silly ‘childhood friend moves away but comes back Hot’ bit of fluff, but then Shower Thoughts hit me like a fucking sledgehammer and now there are more emotions than i'm fit to deal with tbqh. canon-verse, except sak left konoha sometime after the chunin exams and [she also has wood release bc unlike kishi I’m not a coward](https://artlessictoan.tumblr.com/post/175106576139/hi-sakura-shouldve-had-wood-style-sage-mode)  
sorry for the wait but i hope it's worth it, enjoy!

\---

Shit, shit, _shit_!

Ino’s breathing was ragged as she launched herself off the wet, muddy ground and up into the trees. The chakra coating her feet kept her steady on slick bark, but her reserves were dwindling and her concentration was split between tracking her enemy and formulating a plan on the fly.

This was supposed to be a simple mission; she was going to _murder_ Shikamaru when she got back to Konoha.

But thoughts of home could wait, right now she had an S-rank fugitive to lead as far away from her terrified genin team as her battered body would allow. They were safe enough for now – Yui was injured, but she at least remained conscious and she had Haru and Risa with her to care for her, Ino could only pray that they’d followed her orders to head for the nearest village and gotten there safely – but Ino herself was running out of air and energy, her broken arm jolting painfully in its crude sling with every jump she made.

The sound of snapping branches behind her was growing closer. She kept her gaze on the path ahead, but had to bite her lip tightly to keep her head clear.

She could recall most of the vital information from the man’s entry in Konoha’s Bingo Book; a former Kiri-nin, fled his country over twenty years ago, known to use lightning jutsu and experiment with chakra amplifying techniques, something of a lone wolf, suspected of multiple counts of kidnapping and human experimentation.

On any other day, she could easily take this guy, but they’d stumbled into an ambush and she’d had three young, unprepared students to protect. He got off a lucky shot and she had been forced to flee long enough to get her team out of harm’s way, before doubling back to lead him far, far away from them. No way was she letting some filthy low-life get a hold of her kids, nor did she intend to let him get away and hurt anyone else.

Now she just had to make a plan to beat him.

She didn’t get long to plan however, when a bolt of lightning streaked past her and severed the branch she had just been readying to land on before she could get there. Too late to change course, she could only brace herself for a rough landing.

Her broken arm screamed as she hit the ground, even her best attempts to shield it not doing anything to stop the tremor that spread through her entire body when she landed heavily on her back. No time to waste thinking about pain though; she sprang to her feet just in time to dodge his follow-up attack. He landed behind her and threw a jutsu-enhanced punch at the back of her head, she ducked, leg spinning out to cut his out from under him, he jumped, flipping over her to land at her back again, growling, she rolled forward and – with a chakra boost – launched herself forwards, darting between trees and trying to gain some distance.

Maybe she could create a few clones, send him on a chase while she hid and prepared one of her family’s techniques, she didn’t want to take the risk of mind-body switch in this scenario, but maybe mind distur-

She just _barely_ dodged the fist of lighting aimed at her already-injured arm, her breathing ragged as she ducked away from his constant attacks, never giving her the chance to counter.

Her foot caught a root as she backed away and she could feel herself falling. _Fuck_.

A shrill, ear-splitting screech cut through the air, leaving Ino both jittery and dazed as she tried to work out what the_ hell_ he’d just done. But, when her eyes landed on him, he was already leaping away from her, dodging out of the way of the tree crashing down where he had just been standing, his own eyes wide as saucers as he wildly looked around.

Less than a second after he landed, another tree began to scream its descent.

_Someone else is after him_? She barely had time to act on that thought – instinctually searching out for chakra signatures nearby – when, in a flurry of leaves and petals, her opponent was ensnared in twisting branches of a sapling cherry tree.

Her stomach twisted violently. His vain struggling against the chakra-strengthened branches went completely ignored by her, as the third party finally stepped out of the forest.

Ino didn’t need to see her to know; the painfully familiar touch of her chakra was more than enough.

Pink hair – the same shade as the tiny flowers dotting the wooden prison – was cut close to her head, arms as thick as tree trunks and darkened by sunlight were left bare, as were the well-muscled legs clad only in plain, practical shorts. The years had been good to her, she looked stronger, and not just physically.

She didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to draw the woman’s attention, didn’t want to discover that she had been forgotten.

The word escaped her lips regardless.

“S-Sakura?”

Those eyes, older, a little tired perhaps, but still sparkling in the dappled light filtering through the leaves high above them. “Ino!”

Before she could formulate a single coherent thought, she was lifted in crushing arms and spun wildly around. Under different circumstances, she might’ve found pleasure in being held tightly in warm, sturdy arms, but as it was, she had a broken arm trapped between their bodies.

Her sharp hiss quickly stopped the exuberant greeting and she was carefully dropped.

“Shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just got so _excited_,” Sakura said, hands flapping vaguely near her injured arm as though it might drop off any second, “here, let me-”

Fighting every aching desire within her, Ino jerked away, glancing over her shoulder to check on the criminal still trapped within Sakura’s jutsu – and the bombshell that the girl, no, she was a _woman_ now, had somehow learned Wood Release in the years they’d been apart was something she would just have to unpack later – examining his chakra to ensure he was truly unconscious and not just faking it, before turning her back to her oldest and dearest friend.

“Ino?”

She withheld a shudder, concealing the motion as she stepped forwards. “I can’t exactly stop and catch up; I’ve got to find my students.”

“Oh, I think I met them already,” Sakura said, jogging ahead to cut her off, “three kids, the tall girl had a wounded leg and the boy was wearing a hat? They’re the ones who told me their sensei still needed help.” 

Her good hand flew to Sakura’s shirt, gripping tightly. “Where are they, _tell_ _me_ you didn’t just leave them alone-”

The low chuckle simultaneously made her want to punch the woman and swoon.

She settled for glaring.

“Relax, they’re with Tsunade-shishou and she’s already healed their wounds-” the relief must’ve been obvious on her face, because Sakura’s lips quirked up slightly “-it was actually a bit of a struggle getting them to stay behind.”

Sakura once again reached for her arm, Ino shrugged her off and turned away. “I should still go see them, make sure they’re alright.”

“Hey, stop worrying for a second and let me help you.” Placing her hand on Ino’s uninjured shoulder, Sakura slowly pushed her to sit on the spongy moss covering the ground, then, with the gentlest touch Ino had ever known, she pulled her broken arm out of its sling and set to work.

Ino stared at the expression of pure concentration on her old friend, the hard lines of her profile softened by the light green glow emanating from her hands. She had been ignoring the pain fairly well until now, but the sudden relief that flooded through her nerves left her feeling a little light-headed, which was perhaps why she decided to open her mouth.

“Since when can you do that?” She winced at how bitter she sounded. _Shit_, she really had intended to stay calm and civil, but her idiot brain was ignoring every pleading wail of her fool heart to just accept the gift and dig her fingers through that short, messy hair and kiss the beautiful, wonderful jerk already.

If Sakura noticed her tone, she didn’t say so and her eyes flicked over to meet hers for only a second before returning to her arm. “Not long after I left, I guess.”

“And… that?” she asked, glowering at the man held limp in his prison.

“That... was a more recent development, took me ages to figure it out, but it’s pretty cool though, right?” If she hadn’t been busy with her healing, Ino had the awful suspicion that she would’ve flexed her arms, or waggled her eyebrows as well.

She snapped her arm away from Sakura’s grasp the second the healing was complete, absently twisting her joints to regain some feeling in them. “That’s one word for it,” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet and staring into the forest. If she really stretched her senses, she could pick up the three familiar chakra signatures of her students; she started walking towards them, tossing a glance over her shoulder. “I assume you can take our friend there to the necessary authorities.”

“What?” Once more her path was blocked, this time by a rapidly sprouting sapling. “Ino, we haven’t seen each other in so long, why are you so desperate to get away?”

“Because I’ve got a team to take care of. I don’t have the luxury of shirking my responsibilities.”

Clearly Sakura was done ignoring her not-so-subtle cattiness, judging by the hint of frustration to her voice as she said, “Are you mad at me for something?”

Ino stared at the flowers blooming in front of her nose and hated the little part of her that got excited at seeing tiny purple buds mixed in with the pink. She immediately shut her eyes against the sight and tried desperately to hold on to the ball of anger deep in her chest, threatening to dissolve into shadows and slip through her fingers any second.

She had imagined this day for so long now, played out so many different scenarios and responses – anger, joy, grief, love – but now that Sakura was here, real and close, the potential she’d fallen for as a girl, finally realised, bolder and more beautiful than she ever could have dreamed…

“It’s been over fourteen years Sakura! You can't just show up out of nowhere and act like nothing’s wrong!” Ino was on the verge of tears and even she couldn’t tell whether she was aiming to sound furious or distressed, but she pushed on, refusing to open her eyes, or turn back around, because she just _knew_ that the second she looked Sakura in the face, all would be forgiven. “Where the hell have you _been_? Why did you leave?”

The long silence that followed her outburst was crushing.

Something silky and soft brushed against her cheek and, if she wasn’t intimately familiar with the texture of petals and leaves from her work, she might’ve leapt out of her skin. Instead she just let the flower wipe away the tear that had slipped free of her eye.

When Sakura finally spoke again, her voice came from just a few inches behind her, low and calming, “It wasn’t a decision I made lightly and I can’t pretend I don’t have some regrets leaving the way I did… but I don’t regret leaving.” Gentle calm, quickly turned to barely restrained excitement and Ino smiled at the enthusiasm in her old friend’s voice despite herself. “There’s _so much_ out in the world, so much I’ve learned, ways I’ve grown, if I’d stayed, I never would’ve had the opportunity to learn healing from Tsunade-shishou, or develop my own kind of Wood Style! Konoha… it held me back, maybe not deliberately, but now that I’ve been outside it for so long, I can see just how much it needs to change.”

Opening her eyes and slowly turning around to face the woman, Ino had to accept that she had lost whatever battle she was fighting with herself.

Really, she’d lost the second Sakura showed up, eyes and soul blazing.

“I guess I can understand that,” she said, rubbing at the damp tracks across her cheeks, “but you didn’t even explain it, when you told me you were going away to train for a while, I thought you meant for a few _weeks_, but I kept waiting and you never came back and I didn’t even know what was happening, if you were even still safe.”

Sakura at least had the grace to look ashamed. “Yeah, that was pretty shit of me, I probably should’ve at least written to you more, but I just… you were more than a best friend to me, you were my idol, everything I wanted to be. And I needed to become someone you could love.”

She scoffed before she could stop herself, before shaking her head. “You idiot, I _always_ loved you.”

A soft blush settled on her cheeks, but Sakura’s smile held not a spec of embarrassment, just a soft, subtle kind of melancholy. “I know, but…” She looked down at herself, hands fidgeting with the fabric of her shirt before she continued, in a voice that shook, just a little, at the edges, “But, before I could love you – as a person, not an idea – I had to learn how to love myself.”

Ino bit her lip and hesitantly reached out, laying her hand gently over Sakura’s. “So, do you? Love yourself I mean?”

She glanced down at the hand encasing her own, before slowly following the line of her arm back up to her face. Her gaze was tender, but assured. “Yeah,” she said with a short laugh, every trace of sadness lifting from her face in the wake of her bright smile.

It was crooked and a bit too wide, showing off teeth that had probably been knocked loose more than once, and it was the most beautiful Ino had ever seen her.

“Yeah, I _really_ do.”

“And-” she didn’t care that her hand was trembling against Sakura’s as she stepped closer; close enough to count the freckles dusted across her nose and marvel at the myriad shades of green in her eyes “-do you love me?”

Sakura stepped forward herself, tilting her neck slightly to look her in the eye. “You even have to ask?”

Before she could think of an adequate response to that, she was tugged down and warm lips were pressed against hers in a feather-light kiss. Ino pressed closer, sliding her free hand behind Sakura’s neck to hold her in place as they giggled into each other’s skin. They stood like that for what felt like an eternity, kissing chaste but oh-so-sweet, occasionally stopping to just lean their foreheads together and share in their equally wobbly smiles.

Eventually though, they had to wake up from their fantasy come to life, when the long-forgotten prisoner began to stir and immediately started cursing them both.

“C’mon, lets get back to your team before Tsunade starts teaching them gambling tricks,” Sakura said, pulling away to tear the jail from the ground and sling it – trunk, roots, criminal and all – over her shoulder.

Ino was not at all ashamed to admit that she swooned.

“And… maybe I could come back with you? I’ve been away from home for way too long.” The question was a little uncertain, as though Sakura was still worried that she might be rejected.

The hand Ino offered was taken without question and they both began walking toward home.

\---


	9. Butch Sakura/Butch Tenten - Gym AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 req again, for any character watching butch!sak work out, which could not be more tailor-made for me specifically. decided to go with tenten since she hasn’t got any attention with this batch of reqs! also this might’ve gotten away with me and basically turned into teppu……… not that that’s ever a bad thing.
> 
> funfact: while looking for an excuse to procrastinate on writing this i finally _stopped_ procrastinating on trying out some martial arts classes like i’ve been telling myself i’d definitely get on for the last.. much time. also i got off my arse and started looking for a new job. so uh.. cheers for that!

\---

Tenten had many important things to be doing right now.

She had paperwork that had been waiting for several days now and if she didn’t get on it soon her boss was going to kill her with one of his trademark ‘casual’ exercise routines; she could also help out with the clean-down of her last class, but Neji was very particular and didn’t look fondly on her ‘get it done quick’ attitude; and she had promised Lee that she would poke her head into his junior judo class at some point today and help out.

But, why would she do _any_ of that, when she could just keep casually leaning against a wall, watching in rapt fascination as muscles pulled and stretched.

“Do you mind?”

Tenten didn’t bother to look in the woman’s eyes, instead keeping her own fixed on the thick arms that were straining and completely uncovered for her viewing pleasure. “Nope,” she said with a wide grin.

There was a low grumble, but she apparently didn’t care enough to stop her push-ups. Tenten had seen her around quite a bit recently, ever since the Might Dojo officially joined with the Hatake Gym – nominally because only together could they afford the rent of the new, larger facilities they’d both been eyeing up, but _really_ because Gai and Kakashi were both sick of trying to find an apartment with reasonably short commutes to both of their former work-places since deciding to finally move in together – but she hadn’t spoken to her outside of some idle greetings during staff meetings.

Honestly, she didn’t know why she hadn’t leapt on her sooner, Sakura was _exactly_ her type; short, athletic, striking, handsome looks, a cute undercut and could probably easily throw her twenty feet in the air. Maybe not _quite_ as butch as Tenten herself was, but pretty close.

“So-” she pushed herself off the wall and stepped closer, mostly just to get a better look at the back muscles tensing with each controlled descent “-you’re an instructor too, right?”

Green eyes briefly glanced over her wide, beautiful shoulders, before dropping back to the floor as she effortlessly pressed down and pushed herself back up. “Yes, and I’ve got a class starting in fifteen, so could you maybe let me warm up in peace?”

Tenten wasn’t one to be easily deterred. “Oh? What’re ya teaching?”

“You don’t know your own gym’s schedule?” Her voice wasn’t even a little strained, even at her fifteenth rep.

“Eh, as long as I know what I’m doing then I don’t see why I need to learn everything else that’s going on.” How much trouble would she get in if she tried sitting on her back right now? She could surely take the more extreme work out.

With a grunt, Sakura finished her push-ups and rose to her feet. Tenten wanted to pout at her lost opportunity, but her attention was quickly reclaimed when she stepped up to one of the punching bags lining the walls. “I’m teaching MMA,” the woman said, checking the tape on her fists before launching into a standard set of punches.

She could smell on opportunity here. Smirking, Tenten sauntered over and stood very pointedly within the woman’s sight. “That beginner level, sweetheart?”

The full-body twitch was more than worth having to dodge the bag sent flying toward her.

Ok, maybe she’d been asking for that. She let out a chuckle and moved closer again, coming up to her side and leaning down to whisper in her ear, “C’mon, you’re not getting anything out of this old thing, why don’t you give me a shot?”

“You want to spar?” Sakura asked, pausing in her set for a brief moment, before launching back full-force.

“_Hell_ yes.”

Bright eyes gave her a quick once over, lingering on her arms – crossed and slightly tensed, to better show off her biceps – and legs – carefully positioned to give her a generous view of inner thigh – before returning to her face with a determined look. “Let me guess, muay thai?”

She shrugged as she said, “I’ve dabbled in most things, but I actually specialise in kali, arnis, y’know, FMA in general.” Her own eyes gave Sakura a lingering examination, trailing perfectly-defined muscles like the small beads of sweat slowly trailing down her golden skin. “And you look like a classic striker to me, bet you’ve trained as a boxer.”

“A little,” she said shortly, adding a few extra punches to her drill. _Still playing coy_? She could work with that.

With practised nonchalance, Tenten stepped just behind the other woman, hovering just out of range of the elbows that sharply drew back before each punch, then leaned forwards to whisper in her ear, “Sooo? You wanna do it?”

There was only the slightest shudder in response. Disappointing. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Hey, I’m dtf any time.”

The red bloomed across the back of her ears like a rose, the colour even reached her _neck_. Tenten could only imagine how hot her face must feel in that moment.

_Aww, she’s shy, how cute_.

Green eyes immediately narrowed on her as she spun in place to glare up at her. “Are you being serious right now?” she spluttered out, voice caught somewhere between disbelief and indignation, but Tenten definitely wasn’t imagining the hint of excitement lurking at the edges.

“Down to _fight_, babe,” she said, her most lascivious smirk spreading across her face. “Why, what did you _think_ I meant?”

Tenten was about five seconds from getting a fist in her stomach, if the look on her face was anything to go by, but she just could not stop herself from leaning down to better meet the shorter woman’s eyes and fluttering her lashes with her best puppy-dog pout on her lips. “One spar won’t hurt, c’mon, first to ten points?”

Clearly she was still hesitant, but impatience was slowly growing in her eyes. Just a light nudge and she’d probably snap.

All it took was for Tenten to playfully knock their noses together.

“Make that first to submission and we have a deal.” She was now blazing with a dangerous mix of determination and excitement.

Is this what love felt like?

“Oho, confidence!” Tenten’s laughter was a little giddy, but she didn’t care, already skipping back and dropping into her preferred fighting stance; her hands held close to her face and knees slightly bent. “I like that, lets see how long it lasts.”

Sakura snorted, but quickly took her own stance, more open, and significantly lower.

They lightly tapped their leading fists together, before launching into a rapid flurry of movement, Tenten blocked the punch immediately aimed at her head, jumped back to avoid the knee following it, while Sakura stepped in after every attack, aiming to close distance and keep Tenten moving.

Was she wary of strikes? Kali was admittedly more suited to that than grappling, but if she really thought that Tenten didn't have some tricks up her sleeve she was gonna be in for a rough time.

Grinning, she ducked under a vicious left hook and launched herself into Sakura’s chest, knocking her back onto the padded floor. She didn't wait for her to recover, crawling up the woman's strong, beautiful body to try and get her right arm in a lock.

This close, it was so much easier to see the well-developed muscles fluttering under dark skin, glistening in a light sheen of sweat. Despite the familiar smell of much-borrowed boxing gloves – one that Tenten knew from experience would take much scrubbing and an entire bar of soap to fully wash out – there was a pleasant muskiness and a sharp, fresh scent that filled her entire head with thoughts of burying her face into that delicious skin and just dragging her tongue-

In her brief moment of distraction, Tenten’s right arm was tucked under Sakura’s elbow, one heavy leg draped over her shoulder, trapping her upper body close to Sakura’s stomach.

_Oh_? Tenten experimentally tried to shift her arm into a better position, Sakura responded by pushing it away, pulling her other leg until it could wrap around her neck to meet the other. She didn’t need to be able to see it to feel how both ankles crossed tightly against her back, thick muscles tensing against her face. A picture-perfect triangle choke; apparently the woman was more comfortable with grappling than she’d given her credit for.

“You know,” Tenten said, giving herself as much room to breathe as Sakura would allow – which wasn’t much, clearly she didn’t take it easy, even for a casual spar – and flashing a grin at her captor, “I always wanted to die with my head trapped between the _magnificent_ thighs of a gorgeous woman.”

The speed at which her entire face went red was truly astounding and, judging by the look on her face, she was very seriously considering granting that wish.

Her arm was quickly grabbed and twisted back until Tenten was forced to submit, tapping her free hand against the nearest leg until she was released, she immediately rolled away and looked to the ceiling, chest heaving and arm aching as she tried to recover. So light-headed was she, that when the head of pink hair dropped into her sight, she immediately let out a winded giggle and raised a shaky hand to poke her nose.

“Best of three?”

\---


	10. Femme Sakura/Butch Temari - Cosplay AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 req for femme sak/butch tema where they’re at a con and tema is a cosplayer with a big fuck off weapon. gotta admit, the biggest difficulty was who the fuck they’d be cosplaying as since it turns out I’m not familiar with many gigantic weapon wielding characters in any of the things I watch or play somehow.. I was sorely tempted to have them cosplaying as themselves for a while there.

\---

This place was too loud, and crowded, and she was sorely regretting wearing an outfit with quite so many frills and petticoats – no matter _how_ cute she looked in it, the heat of a thousand bodies packed together in a poorly ventilated hall was just not worth it.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this, what was the point in dressing up, I don't think anyone's even looked at me since we got here.”

Naruto was still waving goodbye to the kid who’d asked to have her picture taken with his particularly campy take on Aquaman, though her words quickly had him giving her a Look out of the corner of his eyes, a knowing smirk plastered across her face. “Your ego is showing,” he sang.

She was definitely not pouting. “Easy for _you_ to say, how many photos have you been in so far?”

“Yeah, but I asked to be in most of those.” He had to jog to keep up with her long strides, but he still managed to throw out several compliments to some of the other cosplayers they passed by.

“Exactly! How are you so confident just walking up to complete strangers and asking that?”

“You just gotta be more like me,” he said, and it was a testament to their friendship that he knew _exactly_ what she was going to say in response to that, because the second she opened her mouth, he interrupted her. “Loud and with absolutely zero shame!”

Well, she wasn’t going to argue with that.

Together, they navigated their way around a large group of very excited teens clustered around an artist’s stall, her friend still nattering at her side, “It's your first time at a con, of course it takes some getting used to, don't be so hard on yourself.”

He was right, annoyingly, but she’d always been something of a perfectionist and she’d put_ so much_ time and effort into her elaborate cosplay – hours of researching patterns and materials, practising various sewing techniques before she ever even touched the base dress she’d managed to discover hidden in a charity shop after almost two weeks of searching, hell, she’d even had to learn how to dye cloth in order to get the perfect colours for her grand idea – just a little appreciation of her work would be nice.

“I’m pretty sure no one is impressed with me,” she said, pulling at the ruffles lining her bodice, “I’ve seen at least six other Princess Peaches wondering around and they’re all way more convincing than I am.” And by convincing, what she really meant was slender and delicate.

Both things with she was decidedly not.

Naruto clearly saw her reasoning, because he was quick to try and pull her out of it. “You’re exaggerating!”

“_No one_ wants to take a picture of a buff Princess Peach.”

“Hey-” he grabbed her gloved hand and pulled her away to a relatively quiet area, his voice and expression deadly serious “-you look amazing and I won’t hear another word otherwise, buff femmes are a gift to the world and you should be proud.”

Rolling her eyes, she pushed him back with a snort. “I know that dummy, I’m not feeling sad, I’m just pissed that no one here has any taste.”

Indeed, her body was another thing she worked very hard to perfect and she was absolutely not ashamed to show it off. Though it did make finding an equally – if not more – strapping butch who’d treat her like the princess she absolutely deserved to be a little difficult. She was a simple girl, with simple tastes, all she wanted was a handsome woman who could bench Sakura’s not inconsiderable bodyweight.

“You_ sure_ you’re not just sulking, because you’re not the most popular girl in town?”

“Do you want to get punched? Because that right there is the kind of talk that will get you pun…” Her voice cut out in a breathy gasp.

Samus Aran herself was casually waltzing down the aisle.

Sakura grabbed Naruto's arm for support, as every hopelessly gay bone in her body crumbled to dust.

His asking what was wrong went completely ignored, she could only stare at the vision marching between tables, the crowd instinctively parting before her, like minnows before a shark, all eyes turning to follow her strong, confident strides.

“Daaaaamn.” Naruto had apparently followed her hungry gaze, because he let out a long, appreciative whistle. “How long do you think that getup took to make?”

Unlike the handful of other Samus cosplays she'd seen today, this was the character as she was _meant_ to be, fully armoured, shoulders wider than a bus, legs for days, well over six feet of pure Warrior. Her hand cannon was somewhat… exaggerated – compared to canon at least – but honestly, that just made Sakura's throat even drier.

And, just when she thought all air had long since vacated her body, Samus pulled off her helmet and the dark face with a roguish smirk and mess of blond curls pulled into a chaotic ponytail that was revealed stole the lingering gasp she didn’t know she still had in her.

“Hey. Sak. Sakura. Oi.” She vaguely heard the words coming from somewhere to her left, but could not bring herself to look away.

A rough hand slapped across her eyes.

“Hey!” she yelled – well, _tried_ to yell, breathless as she was it came out more as a wheeze than anything even slightly intimidating – and whacked Naruto's hand away.

“Oh, good, you're still alive, you were starting to turn purple there, I was worried I'd lost you.”

Her glare was half-hearted at best, but it was probably a good thing he'd reminded her that she still had many important bodily functions that really shouldn’t be put on hold just because a pretty girl walked by. Though, now that she was thinking about it, she really wanted to sneak another peek at the vision of Raw Amazonian Energy that had left her in such a state to begin with.

The woman was now chatting to a very convincing Bayonetta, her wide grin showing off white teeth and crinkling her slightly crooked nose – it looked like it must've been broken at some point, but Sakura was very much into the rugged look, so frankly it just made her all the more mesmerised.

“You should go talk to her.”

She blinked out of her trance once more, as her head snapped around to stare at her best friend. “What? _No_. No way. _How_?”

Naruto, bless his heart, just smiled and said, “Walk up and tell her you really like her costume,” as though that wasn't such a monumentally impossible task that she wanted to weep just thinking about it.

“Are you fucking kidding me.”

“C'mon, it's not that hard," he said, dropping an arm across her shoulders. "I bet she gets it all the time, there's nothing to be embarrassed about!”

Sakura dug her heels into the floor as he gently, but determinedly, tried to push her forward. She might’ve had more success if she weren’t wearing such dainty pumps. “Exactly, she's probably sick of it and I should just leave her alone and admire her silently from afar.”

Naruto, bless his heart, looked at her like she was the stupidest person alive.

Honestly, she couldn't really say that she wasn't.

Before she could distract him by pointing out the stall selling ninja gear at the opposite end of the alley to where Samus was waving goodbye to Bayonetta, he was shoving her firmly in the direction of the beautiful thief of her heart, despite her legs’ adamant refusal to cooperate with his wishes.

“No, no, Naruto, don't you dare do this to me, I will _end_ you, I will slit open your stomach and strangle you with your own intestines, I will-”

Her deranged muttering came to an abrupt halt when her friend carefully lifted her by the arms and _threw_ her into the poor, unsuspecting woman’s chest.

The way she was caught wasn't half as suave and romantic as every period drama she'd ever watched had led her to believe it should be and the armour the woman was wearing was apparently made of steel, if the painful clanging of her forehead against it was anything to go by, but they both managed to stay standing and a deep, husky laugh was quickly washing away all memories of pain and embarrassment. And quite possibly her own name.

“Woah there, Princess,” a warm voice cooed softly, as Sakura finally managed to blink her vision back into place and stand up by herself. “You alright?”

She then made the terrible mistake of looking up, into the intense green eyes staring down at her, light curls of hair framing her strong, striking face like a halo – and that just had to be what she was, an angel, no earthly being had any right being so perfect – at which point she lost all higher brain functions. Perhaps she managed to make a strangled affirmative noise, because the woman gave a relieved smile and took a small step back, though her hand lingered against Sakura’s waist, ready to support her if needed.

“That’s good, the crowds can get a bit wild here, huh?”

Her mouth must’ve been acting on autopilot now, because she was speaking, before she even really processed the question, “Oh, it wasn’t the crowd it was-”

_Naruto_.

Flicking her gaze all around her, she searched for the tell-tale blond spikes of her best-friend-turned-worst-enemy, but, alas, he had melted away into the throng of people surrounding them, forever lost. Which was probably a smart idea, because when she next saw him, she was going to _destroy _the idiot.

“Never mind,” she said, giving one last glare to an innocent bystander, who very quickly turned around and started walking back the way they came, “just a friend being a dick.”

The woman’s brows furrowed slightly in confusion, but she quickly shrugged it away and lifted her ludicrous hand cannon to rest in the nook between her exaggerated shoulder pads and her neck. “Well, even if it was a bit violent, it’s nice to meet you; name’s Temari.”

Sakura just barely managed to stutter out her own name, before her eyes decided that this was the perfect time to greedily drink in her elaborately realistic cosplay while she was up close. The longer she looked, the more awed and – in the subtle way of a fellow creative witnessing a masterpiece – somewhat jealous she became. “That costume is just… amazing, are those _actual_ LED lights or is it just glow paint? And how’d you work out the joints in the armour?”

“Not a damn clue! My brother’s the artist, I just model some of his work for him-” she flicked a glossy business card out of a small, hidden compartment in her arm cannon and held it out to her “-he does commissions if you’re interested.”

Well, shit. There went any hope of a common interest.

While Sakura was trying not to pout at the words ‘Black Ant Costuming’ and come up with a graceful escape route, Temari snorted. “And in return for doing all his advertising for him, I got him to make me a Samus costume, because no one else has the figure to do her justice.”

The wink she gave was at once both shamelessly theatrical and utterly _devastating_. Sakura was pretty sure that her brain had just melted into a puddle of love-struck goop and was no longer controlling her body’s actions – it was the only excuse she would accept for the breathless, swooning giggle she let out in response.

“Th-that you do,” Sakura said, only half aware of what she was even saying anymore.

Her extremely besotted state was probably clear to everyone in a ten-meter radius, but Temari had the grace not to point it out directly.

No, her eyes were too busy scanning up and down Sakura’s own outfit. “Not that you really need Kankuro’s help, you look super cute already.” Apparently Temari didn’t notice the blood rushing to her head fast enough to explode it, because she barrelled on without a care for her heart’s wellbeing, “That dress… are those the lesbian flag colours, or is my bi ass just reading into things again?”

_Shit_, she was definitely making a weird face by this point. “I-I wasn’t expecting anyone to notice-” she said, her voice sounding a million miles away.

Temari leaned down a little, the golden-brown skin of her cheeks turned just _slightly_ red and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “You know, I actually ship Samus and Peach real fuckin’ hard, and you are straight-up adorable, mind if we take a cute shippy pic together? Just a hug is fine if you’re not comfortable wi-”

Sakura had spent many years trying to smother that loud, aggressive, unrestrained side of herself under layers of shy, demure femininity. How _well_ it had historically worked was up for debate, but, now, in the face of a gorgeous woman who ticked every one of her boxes – and several she didn’t realise she had, she thought, once more eyeing up the oversized weapon Temari waved about with ease – her carefully constructed façade was immediately thrown out the window.

“NARUTO!”

All around her, people jumped, even Temari flinched and took a step back. Just as she was getting ready to yell again, she saw a familiar face peek up from behind an artist’s table; she _knew_ he wouldn’t have gone far when there was the opportunity to watch Sakura fail at flirting to enjoy.

She pulled her phone out of her purse and threw it at him. “Hurry up and get over here, you’re taking pictures of us.”

Just barely saving her phone from an untimely meeting with the cold hard ground, he clambered over the table he was hiding behind, apologising profusely to the poor vendor whose stock he was rearranging.

Sakura paid him no mind, spinning back to face a slightly bewildered – but _very_ amused – Temari. “Hold me bridal-style while I kiss your cheek.”

A single brow raised, before that smug grin that had so captivated Sakura in the first place returned and she was effortlessly hoisted in two strong arms. She was so thrilled to be there; she didn’t even think to complain about the hard plastic covering them. Especially not when Temari whispered in her ear, “As you wish, my Princess.”

\---

**Author's Note:**

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